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THE COMMERCE OF CHRISTENDOM 




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Woollen * Blue ' SuqypUecL with Wool from England Spam 
&3esse, andj Corn, from, France, and, Hi*, 
ports on the Baltic -Exporting Woollen 
goods all over Chiistendjom, 

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Overland, Commerce through Germany 
to Venice 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/eraofprotestantr05seeb 



/ 

THE ERA 



OF THE 



PROTESTANT REVOLUTION 



ifl 



' FREDERIC SEEBOHM 

AUTHOR OF 
'HE OXFORD REFORMERS — COLET, ERASMUS, AND MORE' 



WITH NUMEROUS MAPS 



BOSTON 
ESTES AND LAURIAT 

143 WASHINGTON STREET 
1874 



/•fe 



1 






» 









Books are issued to and returned by employe' 
f 11 a. m. and 2 p.m. on all days except Sum 
The Library is open to employes, for refer 
i p. m. . ^ . 

LIBRARY RULES. 

1. The employes of the Department of the Interior _.y a^ 
borrow hooks from the Library. 

2. Before being allowed to draw hooks employ6s will be require 
the Librarian a certificate of identity from the Chief Clerk of the ~ 
or of the Bureau or Office in which employed. 

3. No book will be taken from the Library until its title and t 1 
borrower shall have been regis^eredjby. thj£ Librarian. 




be taken. 



is for two weeks, and bor- 
as drawn to other persoi 



4. Of works of single volumes onlytiBlWfa time may be bor 
of two or more volumes two : 

5. The period of a loan of 1 
prohibited from lending bo<> 
Department, or not. 

6. Borrowers wishing to retain books for a longer period 
may at the close of the second week renew the loan for 
weeks. 

7. The loan of a book will be renewed but once. 

k. Books classed as "Works of Reference" or marl 
with an (* ) , cannot be taken from the Library. 

9. When a book has been injured while in the posse on t>j 
must be replaced by a perfect copy. 

10. Application for and return of books must be made in pf 
cases of sickness or absence from the city. 

11. Books returned will not be reyssjied until they have be 
replaced upon the shelves. *■ I 

12.. When a book has been retained b/y a borrower beyond 1 del 

renewal, its price will be certified to 'the Disbursing Officer oi .he Dcpa 
and deducted from the salary of the person withholding it. 

IS. Writing on the leaves or covers of books, and the foldiDg or turnin _, i 
of their leaves are strictly prohibited ; violation of this rule will debar emp] 
from further privileges of the Library. 

14. In selecting books from the shelves, care must be used in handling ti... 
replacing those not drawn on the shelves from which they were taken ; tl. 
number of the shelf may be ascertained from the label above. 

15. Employes, on quitting the service of the Department, must return a 
books in their possession belonging to the Library. Final payment of the. 
salaries will be withheld by the Disbursing Officer until he is satisfied that ah 
books charged against them at the Library have been returned. 

16. For infringements of any of the above rules the Librarian is authorized 
to suspend or refuse the issue of books to the culpable persons. 

By order of the Secretary : 

m?.n ivi TOf^wnnr) 



■*SA 

SUMMARY. 



PART I. 

STATE OF CHRISTENDOM. 

i CHAPTER I. 

Introductory. 

PAGE 

(a) The Small Extent of Christendom. — Smaller than it once had been. 
The Mohammedan power checked in the West, but encroaching from 
the East. Kinship r etween Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews, 
but they hate one another ........ i 

(b) The Signs of New Life in Christendom. — Influence of the Cru- 
sades. Inventions. Fall of Constantinople. Revival of learning. 
Printing • • 3 

(c) The Widening of Christendom. — Moors driven out of Spain. Dis- 

covery of America. New way to East Indies. Men's minds pre- 
pared for great events ......... 4 

(cf) The New Era one of Progress in Civilisation. — What civilisation 
is. The old Roman civilisation. Its main vice. Modern civilisa- 
tion. Its strength. The crisis of the struggle between the old and 
the new order of things. Plan of this book 5 

CHAPTER II. 

THE POWERS BELONGING TO THE OLD ORDER OF THINGS, 
AND GOING OUT. 

(a) The Ecclesiastical System. — The Ecclesiastical Empire. Rome its 
capital. Independent of the civil power. The monks. Power of the 
ecclesiastical system, by its influence over the people, by its wealth, 
by the monopoly of learning and political influence, which all cen- 
tred in Rome. This Empire will be broken up in the Era . . 8 

(3) The Scholastic System. — The learned world talked and wrote in 
Latin, and belonged to the clergy. This made learning scholastic, 
shackled science, and religion also, and kept them from the common 
people. Necessity of mental freedom. The Universities. Students 
pass from one to another. The result of this in the days of Wiclif. 
Will be repeated in the new Era. The work of the Era . . 11 



vi Summary. 

PAGE 

(c) The Fetcdal System and the Forces -which were breaking it uj>. — 
It divided countries into petty lordships. Decay of the feudal 
system. Subjection of feudal lords to the Crown. Increasing power 
of the Crown. The growth of commerce. Trade of the Mediter- 
ranean. The manufacturing districts. The fisheries. The com- 
merce of the Hanse towns. Bruges and Antwerp the central marts 
of commerce. Lines of maritime, inland, and overland trade. The 
towns had mostly got free. Why the towns hated feudalism and 
favoured the Crown. The feudal peasantry once were more free 
than afterwards under the feudal system. Where the central power 
was weakest, feudal serfdom lingered longest. The towns and 
commerce favoured freedom of the peasantry . . . . . 15 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MODERN NATIONS WHICH WERE RISING INTO POWER. 

(a) Italy. — Italy not a united nation. Rome, according to Machiavelli, 
the cause of her disunity. Rome a centre of rottenness. Dante 
and Petrarch described her vices. Recent Popes bad men. Alex- 
ander VI. and Caesar Borgia. Their crimes. Effect of Papal 
wickedness. Main divisions of Italy. Papal States. Venice. 
Florence. Milan. Naples. Papal politics the ruin of Italy by pro- 
moting invasion by France and Spain 21 

(0) Germany.— Germany had not yet attained national unity. The 
emperor claimed to be Caesar and King of Rome. His claim to 
universal empire very shadowy. How elected. The feudal cere- 
mony. There were no imperial domains. Very little imperial 
power. The Emperor Maximilian powerful as head of the Austrian 
House of Hapsburg. Charles V. powerful because of his Austrian 
and Spanish dominions. The Diets had no power to enforce their 
decrees. The feudal system still prevailed. Subdivision of lordships 
by law of inheritance. Constant petty feuds. Lawlessness of the 
knights. The towns of Germany. Their leagues for mutual de- 
fence. Want of a central power to maintain the public peace. The 
condition of the peasantry growing harder and harder for want of a 
central power. History of the German ' Bauer.' Rebellion his 
only remedy 26 

(c) Spain.— Spain was becoming the first power in Europe. Power of 

the nobles. Driven into the north by the Moors. Reconquest of 
Spain from the Moors, except Granada which held out. Kingdoms 
of Castile and Arragon united under Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain 
thenceforth tends to become an absolute monarchy. Conquest of 
Granada. Ferdinand's policy to complete Spain on the map. Co- 
lumbus. Foreign policy. Royal marriages. Success of these alli- 
ances. Domestic policy. Subjugation of the nobles. The Inquisi- 
tion. Banishment of the Jews. Independent policy towards Rome. 
Colonial policy. Christianity introduced into the New World, but 
slavery with it .3 

(d) France. — How all France had grown into one nation. France 
claimed Milan, and Naples also. This union of all France the re- 
sult of the Crown being hereditary, primogeniture, and intermarriage 
with the royal family. The towns. Final struggle of the Crown 
with Burgundy. English conquests at an end. The English wars 
had helped to unite the nation and increase the power of the Crown; 
but there were seeds of disunion within. The Crown had become 



Summary. vii 



absolute. Royal taxes without consent of the people. Royal stand- 
ing army. The noblesse a privileged untaxed caste. The peasantry 
not serfs, but taxed, paying rents, and tithes, and taille. Their 
grievances. The middle class leave the country for the towns. Se- 
paration of classes the main vice in French polity. Love of foreign 
wars the chief vice in her policy ....... 40 

(e) England. — The English nation had for long been consolidated. The 
nobility not a caste. Importance of the middle classes of citizens and 
yeomen. The Crown and all classes subject to the laws. The govern- 
ment a constitutional monarchy, i.e. the king could make no new laws 
and levy no taxes without consent of parliament. The ecclesiastics 
not altogether Englishmen, but held large possessions. The- Pope 
also drew revenues from England. The peasantry had got free from 
feudal servitude and were becoming a wage-earning class. Freedom 
did not necessarily make them materially better off. They had no 
share in the government, but there was nothing in the laws to pre- 
vent their getting it. Henry VII. was a Welshman, and landed in 
Wales. His throne precarious. Other claimants. Lambert SimneL 
Perkin Warbeck. Henry VII.'s foreign policy was alliance with 
Spain. Hence the marriage with Catherine of Arragon. Henry 
VII.'s domestic policy. His position as regards Parliament. His 
minister, Cardinal Morton. Order maintained. Middle class fa- 
voured. The way paved for- the union of England and Scotland'. 
The Welsh finally conciliated, and England's colonial empire begun. 
The tomb of Henry VH. . . .... . . . .46 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEED OF REFORM AND DANGER OF REVOLUTION. 

(a) The Necessity for Reform. — Italy and Germany not yet united na- 
tions. The lack of international peace and justice. The serfdom 
of the German peasantry still continued. The ecclesiastical and 
scholastic systems needed reform. The alternatives were reform or 
revolution . . . . . . . .. ... . .55 

(o) The Traifi laid for Revolution. — Chiefly among the • German peasan- 
try. Their ecclesiastical as well as feudal grievances. Contemporary 
testimony. Successful rebellion of the. Swiss in 1315, and the pea. 
sants of the Graubund 1441-71. Unsuccessful rebellion of the Lol- 
lards and Hussite wars 1415-1436. Threats of rebellion in Fran- 
conia in 1476. The Bundschuh. Rebellion in Kempten T492. In 
Elsass 1493. Both again in 1501-2. In the Black Forest 5512-13, 
'under Joss Fritz. In 1514 in Wurtemberg and the Austrian Alps. 
The Swabian league of nobles against the peasants. Far and wide 
the train was laid for future revolution. The train laid not where 
serfdom was at its worst, but where freedom was nearest in sight , 57 



viii Summary. 



PART II. 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 

CHAPTER I. 

revival of learning and refokm at florence. 

Page 

(a) The Revivers of Learning at Florence. — The Republic of Florence. 
Power in the hands of the Medici. Cosmo de' Medici 1389-1464. 
Lorenzo de' Medici 1448-1492. Florence the Modern Athens. 
Michael Angelo. The Platonic Academy, Ficino, Politian, and 
Pico della Mirandola. Semi-pagan tendencies of the revival of 
learning . . . . . . . . . . . .66 

(b) The great Florentine Reformer, Girolamo Savonarola, 1452-1498. 
— He becomes a religious reformer. Made Prior of St. Mark at 
Florence. Stirs up in the people the spirit of reform and freedom. 
Death of Lorenzo and Innocent VIII. The -French Invasion of 
Italy. The Medici expelled. The republic restored. Savonarola's 
reforms. He becomes fanatical. Is martyred by order of Pope 
Alexander VI 69 

(c) Savonarola's Influence on the Revivers of Learning. — His influence 

over Pico, Politian, and Ficino 72 

(d) Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527. — Secretary to the Republic at 
Florence, and then serves the Medici. Writes ' ThePrince,'in which 
he codifies the vicious maxims of Italian policy since called ' Machia- 
vellian' 



73 



CHAPTER II. 

the oxford reformers. 

(a) The Spirit of Revival of Learning and Reform is carriea from 
Italy to Oxford. — Distinction and connection between the Revival 
of learning and Religious reform. Both against the Scholastic 
system. The reform movement crushed at Florence. Revivers of 
learning at Oxford. Grocyn and Linacre go to Italy, and return to 
Oxford. John Colet does the same (1485-1496) .... 

{b) Colet, More, and Erasmus join in felloiv-ivork. — Colet unites the 
spirit of the new learning and religious reform. Lectures on St. 
Paul's Epistles at Oxford. Attacks the schoolmen. He urges also 
the need of ecclesiastical reform. Colet attracts disciples and fellow- 
workers. Thomas More. Erasmus. Early life of Erasmus. He 
comes to Oxford. Makes friends with Colet and Thomas More. 
Comes under Colet's influence (1496-1500) 

(c) The Oxford Students are scattered till the Accession of Henry 

VIII. — Exactions of Empson and Dudley. More offends Henry 
VII., The circle of Oxford students formed again in London . 

(d) On the accession of Henry VIII. they commence their fellozv-work. 
Hopes on the accession of Henry VIII. The Oxford students in 
Court favour. Erasmus Greek professor at Cambridge (1509) 

(e) Erasmus writes his 'Praise of Folly.' — Satire on the scholastic 

theologians, monks, and popes (1511) 



Summary. ix 

PAGE 

if) Coletfo?mds St. Pauls School — It is a school of the new learning, 
and excites the malice of men of the old school. His sermon on 
Ecclesiastical Reform. Escapes from a charge of heresy (1510) . 84 

(g) The Continental Wars of Henry VIII., 1511-1512. — The Holy 
Alliance against France. Henry VIII. 's first campaign. Wolsey. 
Julius II. succeeded by Leo X. Henry persists in invading France. 
Gains the Battle of the Spurs. Scotch invasion of England. Battle 
of Flodden. Henry VIII. now joins France against Spain. Louis 
XII. succeeded by Francis I. Francis I. invades Italy and re- 
covers Milan. Again Spain and England combine against France. 
These wars of kings against the interests of Europe, and tended to 
make kings absolute. The example of France. Narrow escape of 
England. Colet preaches against the wars. Erasmus is against 
them too, and also More 86 

(Ji) The kind of Reform aimed at by the Oxford Reformers. — Erasmus 
made a Councillor of Prince Charles. More drawn into Henry 
VIII. 's service. The 'Christian Prince' of Erasmus. More's 
' Utopia.' They entered thoroughly into the spirit of modern 
civilisation. The character of their religious reform. The New 
Testament of Erasmus (1516). The kind of ecclesiastical reform 
urged by the Oxford Reformers, They aimed at a broad and tole- 
rant Church, and were likely to oppose schism . . . .90 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WITTENBERG REFORMERS. 

(a) Martin Luther becomes a Reformer, — Luther born 1483. Sent to 

school and to the University of Erfurt, Becomes a monk. Adopts 
the theology of St. Augustine, and in this differed from the Oxford 
Reformers. He removes to Wittenberg. Visits Rome. Reads the 
New Testament of Erasmus and finds out the difference in their 
theology (1483-1.516) . . 94 

(b) The sale of Indulgences. — Leo X.'s scheme to get money by indul- 
gences. Offers princes a share in the spoil- Erasmus writes bit- 
terly against it, but pope and kings will not listen (1517) . . -97 

(V) Luther's Attack on 1 ?idulgcnces. — Tetzel comes near Wittenberg 
selling indulgences. Luther's theses against indulgences. He is 
backed by the Elector of Saxony. Philip Melanchthon comes to 
Wittenberg (1517-1519) 98 

(d) The Election of Charles V. to tJie Empire (15 19). — Death of Maxi- 
milian. Candidates for the Empire. Charles V. elected through 
the influence of the Elector of Saxony. Extent of Charles V.'s 
rule ............. 100 

(e) Luther's Breach with Rome. — Luther finds himself a Hussite. 

Rumoured Papal Bull against Luther. Luther's pamphlet to the 
nobility of the German nation, and another on the ' Bab3'lonish Cap- 
tivity of the Church.' The Bull arrives (1520) ..... 102 

(f) The Elector of Saxony consults Erasmus, Dec. 6, 1520. — Aleander, 
the Pope's nuncio, tries to win over the Elector of Saxony. The 
Elector asks advice of Erasmus. The advice of Erasmus. The 
Elector follows it, and urges moderation on Luther .... 105 

(g) Luther burns the Pope's Bull, Dec. 10, 1520, notwithstanding the 

cautions of the Elector. Erasmus fears revolution .... 107 



xii Summary. 



CHAPTER II. 

REVOLT OF ENGLAND FROM ROME. 

PAGE 

(a) Its Political Character. — In England the revolt from Rome was 

national and came at first from political causes .... 167 

(f) Reasons for He7iry VIII.'s Loyalty to Rome. — Henry VIII. de- 
fends the divine authority of the Pope, and writes a book against 
Luther in 1521. He tells Sir Thomas More of a secret reason for it. 
Henry VIII.'s marriage with Catherine of Arragon. Secret doubts 
about its validity. Its unsatisfactory beginning. Its validity rested 
on the divine authority of the Pope. Henry VIII.'s anxiety about 
it and the succession. His anxiety to keep on good terms with the 
Pope and Charles V. Execution of the Duke of Buckingham for 
having his eye upon the succession to the throne (1521) . . . 167 

(c) Sir Tho7iias More defends Henry VIII. against Either. — Effect of 

the knowledge of Henry VIII.'s secret reasons on Sir Thomas More's 
mind. Reaction in the minds of Erasmus and More against Luther 171 

(d) Reasons for Henry VIII.'s Change of Policy. — Wolsey the great 
war minister of Henry VIII. More opposed to the wars with France. 
Charles V.'s treachery, and the Pope's. Henry VIII.'s foreign 
policy all at sea again (1527) 

(e) The Crisis. Henry VIII. deter7uines upon the Divorce from Cathe- 
rine of Arrago7i. — Results of breach with Spain. Political reasons 
for the divorce from Catherine. Wolsey tries to get the Pope to 
grant a divorce, but fails. Henry VIII. takes the matter into his 
own hands (1527-1529) . 775 

(f) Fall of Wolsey (1529-1530.) 176 

(g) The Parlia77ie7it of 1529-1536. Revolt of E7igla7id fro77i Ro77ze. — 
Sir Thomas More lord chancellor. Parliament of 1529 a crisis in 
English history, like the Diet of Worms in German history. Com- 
plaints against the clergy and ecclesiastical abuses. Wolsey's at- 
tempts at ecclesiastical reform under papal authority. The king and 
parliament now take up the matter. Petition of the Commons 
against ecclesiastical grievances. Practical reforms. The divorce 
question laid before the universities by Cranmer. Farther reforms. 
The king declared supreme head of the Church of England instead 
of the Pope. The king marries Anne Boleyn. The revolt of Eng- 
land from Rome is now completed ... .... 177 

(h) H eresy still ptaiished i7i E7igla7id. — There had been no change of 
religious creed. Heretics still persecuted, and among them Ti7idal, 
the translator of the New Testament. Sir Thomas More's zeal 
against heresy . 180 

(i) Executio7i of Sir Tho77ias More. — More himself has to suffer for 
conscience' sake. More and Fisher sent to the Tower. Execution 
of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher (1535) 181 

(k) Dea-th of Eras77i7is in 1536. — Review of the results produced by the 

work of the Oxford Reformers. . 185 

(I) Dissolutio7i of tJie Mo7iasteries a7id Refomi of the U~7iiversities 
(1536). — The work set a-going by the Oxford Reformers goes on. 
Cromwell, now ecclesiastical minister of Henry VIII., enquires into 
the state of the monasteries. Dissolution of the monasteries and 
destruction of shrines. Reform of the Universities. Parliament 
of 1529-36 dissolved. Tindal's translation of the Bible sanctioned. 
Martyrdom of Tindal 186 

(m) Later Years of He7iry VIII. (1 536-1 547). — Execution of Anne 
Boleyn. Henry .VI 1 1, marries Jane Seymour. A Catholic rebellion 
in the North, fomented by the Pope and Reginald Pole, is quelled. 



Summary. xiii 



PAGE 

Birth of Edward VI. and death of the queen. Henry VIII. marries 
Anne of Cleves, but does not like her. Cromwell sacrificed to get 
rid of her. Reconciliation with Charles V. Henry VIII. 's last two 
marriages. Alliance with Spain, and wars with France. Want of 
money. Death of Henry VIII. in 1547. Reform goes on during 
the reign of Edward VI. Catholic reaction under Queen Mary. 
England become finally Protestant under Queen Elizabeth . . 188 
(n) Influence of Henry VIII. 's Reign on the English Constitution. — 
How far the constitution was maintained. The revolt from Rome 
accomplished by constitutional means. The power of Parliament 
maintained. It preserved its control over taxation, and over the 
making of new laws. On the whole, the Parliaments of Henry VIII. 
deserve well of Englishmen. Unjust state trials the chief blot on 
the reign of Henry VIII. England fared much better than France 
and Spain 191 

CHAPTER III. 

REVOLT OF DENMARK AND SWEDEN AND (LATER) OF 

THE NETHERLANDS. 

(a) Denmark and Sweden. — Both Denmark and Sweden throw off the 
yoke of Christian II., and then separate. The Swedes elect Gus- 
tavus Vasa king. Sweden, under him, becomes a Protestant nation. 
Denmark also, under her new king, becomes Protestant (1525-1560). 193 

(b) The Revolt of the Netherlands.— Policy of Philip II. to subject the 
Netherlanders to Spain and to Rome. They revolt, and the ' United 
Provinces' become a Protestant nation (1581) 194 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE GENEVAN REFORMERS. 

(a) Rise of a new School of_ Reform (1536-1541). — A Protestant move- 
ment which was not national, but which influenced the Protestants 
of France, England, Scotland, and America more than Luther did . 195 

(5) John Calvin. — His ' Institutes ' gave logical form to the ' Calvinistic ' 
doctrines. Calvin settles at Geneva.. Becomes a kind of dictator 
of the Genevan state. His severe discipline and intolerance. He 
founds schools (1509-1564) . . . . . . . ■ . . 196 

(c) Infliience of the Genevan School on Western Protestantism. — The 

French Hi/guenots, the Scotch Covenanters, the English Puritans, 
the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, all of the Genevan school. 
Their historical importance, and influence on national character . 198 

CHAPTER V. 

REFORM WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

(a) The Italian Reformers. — Efforts at Reform within the Church. 
Improvement in the character of Popes. The Mediating Reformers 
of Italy. Valdez, Pole, Contarini. Paul III. makes some of them 
Cardinals. Chances of a reconciliation with Protestants under 
Paul III. Contarini and Melanchthon try to make peace at the 
Diet of Ratisbon, but the Pope draws back, and Luther \also. 
Everything left over till the Council of Trent (1534-1541) t . 199 



xiv Summary. 



PAGE 

(b) The new Order of the Society of Jesus (1540). — Ignatius Loyola, a 

Spanish knight. Wounded in 1521. Resolves to become a general 
of an army of saints instead of soldiers. His austerities. Resolves 
to found the 'Order of Jesus.' To prepare himself, studies at the 
University of Paris. At Paris meets Francis Xavier. Xavier 
becomes a disciple and the great Jesuit missionary to the Indies, 
China, and Japan. Character of the Jesuits. Their success and 
influence. Causes of their ultimate unpopularity .... 203 

(c) The Council of Trent. — Council of Trent meets in 1545. The 
Jesuits prevail over the mediating reformers. The Inquisition 
introduced into Rome by Carraffa, afterwards Pope Paul IV. The 
Council adjourned till 1555 under Paul IV. The Roman Catholic 
Church reformed in morals, but made more rigid than ever in creed 206 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FUTURE OF SPAIN AND FRANCE. 

(a) The Future of Spain. — Growth of absolute monarchy in Spain. 
Philip II. in close league with the Papacy. Seeks to establish 
Spanish and Papal supremacy together. Fatal results of his policy 2c 

(b) The Future of France. — Everything sacrificed to gratify the am- 
bition of the absolute monarchy under Francis I. The curse which 
the absolute monarchy was to France. Struggle with the Hugue- 
nots in France. Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. Tolera- 
tion for a time under the Edict of Nantes. Its revocation in 1685, 
and the banishment of the Huguenots, who came to England . . 21 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENERAL RESULTS OF THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 

{a) On the Growth of National Life.— Influence of the Protestant 
Revolution on national life — where it succeeded — where it failed — 
where it partly failed and partly succeeded 212 

(6) On the Relations of Nations to each other. — Small improvement in 
the dealings between nations. The Oxford Reformers not listened 
to in this. Henry VIII. the last English king to dream of re- 
covering France. Hugo Grotius afterwards urges International 
reform 213 

(c) Infltience on the Growth of National Languages and Literature. — 
Luther's Bible and Hymns fix the character of the German lan- 
guage. Influence of Calvin's writings on the French language. 
Influence of Tindal's New Testament on the English version of the 
Bible, and so upon the English language ...... 214 

{d) Effects in stimulating National Education. — Schools founded by 
Savonarola, Colet, Luther, Calvin, Knox, the Pilgrim Fathers, and 
the Jesuits 216 

(e) Influence 07i Domestic Life.— Political importance of domestic fyfe. 
Danger to it from the existence in a country of large celibate classes. 
Dissolution of monasteries and permission to the clergy to marry, a 
step gained for modern civilisation .217 

(_/) Inflzience 071 popular Religion. — The Protestant movement popu- 
• larised religion, and strengthened individual conviction . . .217 



Summary. xv 

PAGE 

(g) Want °f Progress in Toleration. — Change from Catholic to Pro- 
testant creeds was change from one rigid scholastic creed to others 
equally rigid. Small connection between claiming freedom of 
thought and conceding it to others. Persecution did not make the 
persecuted tolerant. Yet toleration was after all one of the ulti- 
mate results of the Protestant revolution ...... 219 

(h) The Causes why the Success of the Era was so partial. — Progress 
must be gradual. Limited by the range of knowledge. Limited 
view of the universe. The earth still thought to be in the centre. 
The crystalline spheres. Heaven beyond. The motion of the 
spheres regarded with awe, and in popular superstition referred to 
angels. Astrology laughed at by some but believed in by others. 
Belief in visions and inspirations, and in prodigies. Universal 
belief in witchcraft. Witches as well as heretics burned. Bar- 
barism of criminal law everywhere. The age not prepared for 
toleration 221 

(i) Beginning- of Progress in Scientific Inqtiiry. —The range of geo- 
graphical and'astronomical knowledge widened. Nicolas Copernicus 
argues that the sun is in the centre of the universe. His great 
wcrk not published till he was on his death-bed. He was followed 
by Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo before the century was 
closed 225 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ECONOMIC RESULTS OF THE ERA. 

Results of the Era on what remained of the feudal system. In Ger- 
many, personal services continued. In France, feudal rents and 
payments chiefly in kind continued till 1789. In England, feudal 
rents were chiefly in fixed money payments. Effect of the dis- 
covery of the silver mines in the New World. The fall in the value 
of money caused a great rise in prices. German peasants' services 
not lessened by it ; nor the French peasants' rents in produce, but it 
reduced the burden of the English peasants' rents in money to 
one-sixth or one-eighth of the value of the land. This would have 
made them peasant proprietors had they held on to their land, but 
their tendency was to leave their land and become labourers for 
wages. Change from peasant proprietorship of land and of looms 
to labour for wages chiefly the result of the growth of commerce 
and capital and the use of machinery. These changes had begun 
in the sixteenth century, and they completed the silent downfall of 
the feudal system in England . 227 

CONCLUSION. 

The Protestant Revolution was the beginning of a great revolutionary 
wave which broke in the French Revolution of 1789. The move- 
ment was inevitable, and might have been peacefully met and aided 
by timely reforms : but the refusal of reform at the time of the 
crisis involved ten generations in the turmoils of revolution . . 231 



COLOURED MAPS. 

At t}ie begimiing. 
i. Christendom &c. 

2. The Commerce of Christendom. 

At the end. 

3. Serfdom, and Rebellions against it, 

before 1515. 

4. The Peasants' War, 1525. 



SMALL MAPS. 

PAGE 

Chief Roman Roads 6 

The Ecclesiastical Empire of Rome . . . . .11 

The Universities 13 

Italy 24 

The Seven Prince Electors of Germany . . . .27 

Spain and Naples 34 

The Growth of France . 40 

France in the Era 41 

French Provinces claimed by Henry VIII. . . . .86 
Countries under the Rule of Charles V. .... 102 

Extent of the Revolt from Rome 157 

The Revolt in Switzerland ....... 159 



ERA 

OF THE 

PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 



PART I. 
STATE OF CHRISTENDOM. 

CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

(a) The Small Extent of Christendom. 

In the map at the beginning of this volume the light 
portion marks the Old World as it was known at the 
commencement of the era of which we have to speak. 

A glance will show how small a portion of the known 
world belonged to Christendom — that marked red and 
striped red. And only the red part belonged The small- 
to Western or Roman Christendom, with christen- 
which-we have mostly to do. The part striped dom. 
red had long ago severed itself from the Western and 
belonged to the Eastern Church, which by the Roman 
was regarded as heretical and alien. Thus the Christen- 
dom of which Rome was the capital embraced only 
the western half of the little peninsula of Europe. And 
not even all that. For there was a little bit of Spain 
(marked blue) which did not belong to Christendom. 
B 



- 



2 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

We may note next how much smaller Christendom 
was than it had once been. It had once covered not only 
ri „ , the parts coloured red and striped red, but 

Smaller than 1 - . r 7 

it once had also those coloured dark blue, i.e. all Europe, 
been - Asia Minor, and the African shores of the 

Mediterranean Sea. But the dark blue portions had been 
conquered from Christendom by her great rival Moham- 
, w , medan power, whose religion, though only 

TheMoham- . ., r , , ' , . , , & ' . & _ J 

medan half as old as Christianity, was thought to 

power. number many times as many adherents as 

there were Christians, and covered a much larger area 
than Christendom — all the countries marked blue. 

More than 700 years — twenty generations — ago the 
Mohammedan Moors, after conquering the African shores 
Checked in of the Mediterranean, had pushed on into 
the West. Spain and threatened Christendom from the 
West. Defeated and checked at the great battle of Tours 
in 732, after a struggle of 700 years they still held a foot- 
hold in Spain — the rich southern province of Granada. 

But whilst checked in the West, Mohammedan arms 
had been encroaching more and more upon Christen- 
But en- dom from the East. Turkey and part of 
fro°rn C the g Hungary had fallen into their hands. In 
East. 1 45 3 j i-c- in the lifetime of the fathers of the 
men of the new era, Constantinople had been taken by 
the Turks. The old capital of the Eastern Roman 
Empire now became the capital of the great Ottoman 
Empire. We see then how near to Rome Turkish con- 
quests had come. Only the Adriatic separated the Otto- 
man Empire from Italy. Once the Turks had even got a 
footing in the heel of Italy. It really seemed not unlikely 
that the capital of Christendom might itself some day 
fall into their hands. 

No wonder the Turks were the terror of the Chris- 
tians, And yet they had one thing in common, and it is 



CH. I. 



Introductory. 



well that we should remember it. They were worshippers 
of the same God. Both Christians and Mo- Kinship 
hammedans professed to trace back their faith ^tween 

Christians, 



to Abraham. Though Christendom was small Mohamme- 
dans, 

Jews. 



and dwindling, the area of the religion in- 



herited from Abraham was large and mcreas- 

-^ , . But they 

mg. But this was no consolation to men to hate one 
whom their fellow Christians of the Eastern another - 
Church were heretics, the 'unbelieving Jews' the ob- 
jects of scorn, and the ' infidel ' Turks of terror. 



(b) The Signs of New Life in Christendom. 

Christendom had never felt herself so small or so 
beset with eneniies. And yet there were signs of a new 
life springing up. The new era was to be one of hope 
and progress. 

The Crusades of the Christian nations, intended to 
dislodge the l Infidel' out of Jerusalem, though they had 
failed in that object, had awakened Europe to 
new life. East and West were brought nearer the Cru- e 
together. Knights and soldiers and pilgrims sades - 
brought home from new lands new thoughts and wider 
notions. Commerce with the East was extended. Mari- 
time enterprise was simulated. There was 
improvement in ships. The mariner's compass nven 10ns " 
was discovered, and under its guidance longer voyages 
could safely be made. The invention of gun?- Fall of Con- 
powder had changed the character of war and staminopie. 
enlarged the scale on which it was waged. 

The recent conquests of the Turks were indirectly the 
cause of new life to Christendom. They re- Revival of 
suited in a great revival of learning in Europe, learning. 
Driven from the East, learned Greeks and Jews came 
to settle in Italy. Greek and Hebrew were again studied 



4 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

in Europe. The literature, the history, the poetry, the 
philosophy and arts of old Greece and Rome were re- 
vived. And the result was that a succession of poets, 
painters, sculptors, and historians sprang up in Christen- 
dom such as had not been known for centuries. Above 
all, the invention of printing had come just in 
rmtm£. ^iYCA to spread whatever new ideas were afloat 

with a rapidity never known before. 



(c) The Widening of Chris te7idom. 

So it is easy to see there were abundant signs of new 
life in Christendom, however small, and hemmed in, and 
threatened she might be. A new era was coming on, 
and now observe how Christendom was widened, and 
fresh room found for the civilisation of the new era to 
work in. 

(i) In 1491 the Moors were at last and for ever driven 

out of Spain by the conquest of Granada by 

driven out of Ferdinand and Isabella, and men felt that a 

Spam. turn k a( j come i n tne tide of victory in favour 

of Christians. 

(2) In 1492 came the discovery of the New World by 
Columbus, followed up by the Spanish conquests of 
Discovery of Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese settlements 
America. m Brazil, and the gaining of a foothold in the 
New World by Sebastian Cabot for England — the embryo 
of those great colonies, the New England, or extension 
of England across the Atlantic, in which half the English 
people now dwell. 

(3) In 1497 Vasco de Gama sailed for the first time 
round the Cape of Good Hope, and a new way was opened 
New way to to Asia and the East Indies, and out of this in 
East indies. t h e f ar f u t U re came England's Indian Empire 
and Australian colonies. 



ch. i. Introductory. 5 

Looking again at the map, and adding to the Old World 
the countries coloured in shadow which were brought 
to light mostly during the childhood of the men of the 
new era, we cannot wonder that they spoke of them as 
belonging to a ' new world.' And bearing in mind that 
having reached the West Indies, knowing of no Pacific 
Ocean between, they thought they had reached the East 
Indies from the west, and so had been, as it were, round 
the world, we may realize how grand the new discoveries 
must have seemed to them. Men of that day did not of 
course realize what we knownow,how wide a field these new 
discoveries would open for Christian civilisation to extend 
itself into. But still they gave an immediate feeling of 
relief to pent-up Christendom, a spur to commerce and 
maritime enterprise, new light to science, new ' , 

_ s 1 1 -1 • • ■• Mens minds 

sources of wealth, and new direction to the prepared for 
energies of nations, and more or less to all great events - 
men a sense that they were living in an age of progress 
and change which prepared them to look into the future 
with hope, and to expect great events to happen in their 
time. 

(d) The New Era one of Progress in Civilisation. 
I7t what Modern Civilisation consists. 

The work of the new era was to gain for Christendom 
a fresh step in the onward course of civilisation. 

And when we speak of advance in civilisation, what 
do we mean ? Not simply advance in popu- what civili- 
sation, wealth, luxury, but far more, that which sation is - 
lies hid in the derivation of the word, viz., advance in the 
art of living together in civil society. 

And in order clearly to understand the work that was 
to be done in this era of progress, we must understand 
the difference between (1) the old form of civilisation 



State of Christendom. 



PT. I. 



which was to be left behind and (2) the new form of civilis- 
ation towards which fresh steps were to be gained. 

(1) The old Roman civilisation had come about by 
the conquest of the uncivilised tribes of Western Europe 

by the Romans, by their making the known 

The old -i 1 • i • n • 

Roman world into one great empire, bringing all its 

civilisation. en( j s t g e ther by making roads, encouraging 
commerce, making the Latin language understood by the 
educated all over it, 
and Rome the centre 
of it all. The Roman 
Empire was in fact a 
network of Roman 
towns, with all the 
threads of it drawn 
towards Rome. These 
towns were camps, from 
which the conquerors 
ruled the districts 
round. Little account 
was taken of the coun- 
try people. They were 
looked upon as hopelessly rustic and barbarian. Under 
this system all the conquered countries were made pro- 
vinces of the Roman Empire, not for their own but for 
the conquerors' good. The masses of the 
people were governed by Roman governors 
for the benefit, not of themselves, but of a small number 
of Roman citizens. This vice — this blot — in the Roman 
polity was no doubt the cause of its decay. 

(2) The aim of modern civilisation is obviously 
Modem f ar higher than this. It has not yet reached 
civilisation. j ts goal, but we see clearly that it has been 
aiming, not at one vast universal empire, but at the 
formation of several compact and separate nations, 
living peaceably side by side, respecting one another's 




CHIEF ROMAN 



Its main 
vice. 



CH. I. 



Introductory. 



rights and freedom ; and, looking within each nation, at 
making all classes of the people, town and country, rich 
and poor, alike citizens for whose common weal the 
nation is to be governed, and who ultimately 
shall govern themselves. In this aim of modern 
civilisation to secure the common weal of the people lies 
its power and strength. 

Now the passage from the old decaying form of 
civilisation to the new, better, and stronger one, involved 
a change ; and this change must needs take 
place slowly and by degrees. The old order thestruggie 
of things had gradually for long been going ofd^anTth^ 
out ; the new order of things had gradually new order 
for long been coming in. But in this era was 
to be the crisis of the change — the final decisive struggle 
between the two forces ; and in this lies its importance 
and its interest. 

Before we begin the story of this struggle, we must 
briefly consider what it was in the state of pi anofthis 
Christendom which brought it on ; and this book. 
will be done best by our examining — 

(i) The powers which belonged to the old order of 
things, and now dying out. 

(2) The state of the modern nations which were 
growing up in their place. 

In doing so, we shall try to lay most stress on the 
condition of the masses of the people ; and we shall not 
fail to see clearly some of the main points in which, if 
modern civilisation was to go on, there was a necessity for 
reform, and the danger there was that, if the needful reforms 
were much longer withheld, there would be revolution. 

Then in Part II. will come the story of the struggle ; 
and in Part III. its results on the different nations. We 
shall end with trying to take stock of the amount of pro- 
gress gained during the era, and to look forward at the 
prospects of the future that arise out of it. 



State of Christendom. 



PT. I. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE POWERS BELONGING TO THE OLD ORDER OF 
THINGS, AND GOING OUT. 

(a) The Ecclesiastical System. 

Western Christendom was united under one Eccle- 
siastical system — the Roman, or, as it called itself, the 
1 Holy Catholic 7 Church. 

It was, in fact, a great Ecclesiastical Empire, of which 
Rome was the capital, and the Pope of Rome the head. 
The Eccie- ^ n ^ e ^ ast g enera -tion there had been a schism 
siastical — i.e. for a while there were two rival Popes 

Romethe 11 excommunicating each other — but after much 
capital. trouble and scandal the schism had been 

ended, and now all was one again. 

Europe was mapped out into ecclesiastical provinces, 
at the head of each of which was an archbishop. Each 
province was divided into dioceses, with bishops at their 
head, and each diocese into parishes, each with its parish 
priest. Thus there was an ecclesiastical network all over 
Europe, all the threads of which were drawn towards 
Rome, and held in the hands of the Pope and his cardinals. 

This ecclesiastical empire kept itself as free as pos- 
sible from the civil power in each nation. It considered 
itself above kings and princes. It was more 
of thedviT 1 ancient than any of their thrones and king- 
power, doms. Kings were not secure on their thrones 
till they had the sanction of the Church. On the other 
hand the clergy claimed to be free from prosecution 



ch. ii. The Ecclesiastical System. 9 

under the criminal laws of the lands they lived in. They 
struggled to keep their own ecclesiastical laws and 
courts, receiving authority direct from Rome, and with 
final appeal, not to the Crown but to the Pope. 

In addition to the parochial clergy, there were rival 
orders of monks. There were the Dominican and Fran- 
ciscan rival, mendicant orders, and the older orders 
amongst which were the Augustinian monks ; „,, 

, . ° ° t ij- The monks. 

and in most towns there were one, two, or hall- 
a-dozen monasteries and cloisters. So numerous were 
the monks that they swarmed everywhere, and had become, 
by the favour of the Popes, more important and powerful 
in many ways than the parochial clergy. 

It is essential to mark what a power this eccle- 
siastical empire wielded over the nations. The 

i • • 1 1 1 • 1 ■ 1 3 1 i Power of th 

ecclesiastics held m their hands the keys, as ecclesiastical 
it were, not only of heaven but of earth. system, 

They alone baptized; they alone married people (though 
unmarried themselves) ; they alone could grant a divorce. 
They had the charge of men on their death- . 
beds ; they alone buried, and could refuse over the 
Christian burial in the churchyards. They . P e °P le; 
alone had the disposition of the goods of deceased 
persons. When a man made a will, it had to be proved 
in their ecclesiastical courts. If men disputed their 
claims, doubted their teaching, or rebelled from their 
doctrines, they virtually condemned them to the stake, 
by handing them over to the civil power, which acted in 
submission to their dictates. You will see at once how 
great a power all these things must have given them over 
the minds, the fears, the happiness, and the lives of the 
people. 

The ordinary revenues of the clergy were large. They 
had a right to ' tithes ; ' i.e. to a tenth part of t> y - lts 
the produce of the whole land of Christen- wealth ; 



io State of Christendom. pt. i. 

dom. This had belonged to them for hundreds of years. 
In addition to this they claimed fees for everything they 
did. 

The monks, according to the rules of their founders, 
ought to have got their living by begging alms in return 
for their preachings and their prayers for the living and 
the dead. But their vow of poverty had not kept them 
poor. People thought that by giving property to them 
they could save their souls ; so rich men, sometimes in 
their lifetime but oftener on their deathbeds, left them 
large sums of money and estates in land. In spite of laws 
passed by the civil powers to prevent it, it was said that 
they had got about a third of the land of Europe into 
their possession. Thus the revenue and riches of the 
Church was far larger than that of the kings and princes 
of Europe. 

These were not the sole secrets of their power. From 

the fact that the clergy were almost the only educated 

people in Europe, they became the lawyers 

by the mo- , , . ' , . , , J . 

nopoiyof and diplomatists, envoys, ambassadors, mi- 
leaming nisters, chancellors, and even prime minis- 

ters of princes. They were mixed up with the politics 
of Europe, and the reins of the State in most countries 
were in the hands of ecclesiastics. They received pro- 
and political motion to bishoprics most often in return for 
influence, such political services. 

We cannot fail to see how vast the political power 
of such an ecclesiastical empire as this must have been. 
The Pope, through his army of ecclesiastics all over 
Christendom, had the strings in his hand by which to 
influence the politics of Europe. And one 
centred in of the great complaints of the best men of the 
Rome. fay was that thig political influence was used 

by Rome for her own ends instead of the good of Europe, 
and that the immense ecclesiastical revenues tended to 



CH. II. 



The Ecclesiastical System. 



ii 



flow out of the provinces into the coffers of the Popes and 
cardinals of Rome. 

All this of course ten- 
ded to hinder the , . ' j, . 

, n . , This Empire 

growth and mde- w m be 
pendence of the brokenu P> 
separate nations, and to 
prevent all classes within 
them from becoming united 
into a compact nation. 

It will be one great work 
of the era to break up this 
ecclesiastical empire — to free 
several nations (those marked 

white on the /map) from its yoke. So that Rome will 

cease to be the capital of Christendom. 




{b) The Scholastic System. 

There was another power in Europe which was 
Roman and not national ; which tended to keep classes 
of people apart, and so stood in the way of the growth of 
national life in the separate nations. 

The learned world was a world of its own, severed 
from the masses of the people by its scholastic system. 
All the learned men in Europe talked and Theieamed 
wrote letters and books in Latin — the Ian- and wrote 6 
guage. of Rome. Some of them did not Latin, 
even know the common language of the countries they 
lived in. And as Latin was the language of learning, 
so Rome was the capital of the learned world. Thus 
the learned world was closely connected with the eccle- 
siastical system. Learned people were looked upon 
as belonging to the clergy ; and the Pope had long 
claimed them as subjects of his ecclesiasti- an d belonged 
cal empire. So for centuries in England a to the clergy. 



1 2 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

man convicted of a crime, by pleading that he could 
read and write, could claim benefit of clergy, i.e. to be 
tried in an ecclesiastical court, and this by long abuse 
came to mean ' exemption from the punishments of the 
criminal law of the land. 

This tended to give to knowledge and learning itself a 
clerical or scholastic character. Knowledge was tied 
down by scholastic rules which had grown up 
learning ° in times when the ecclesiastics were the only 
'scholastic,' educated people. The old learned men — 
1 the schoolmen' as they were called — looked at every- 
thing with ecclesiastical eyes. All knowledge had thus 
got to be looked upon almost as a part of theology. 
Matters of science — e.g. whether the earth moved round 
shackled tne sun or th e sun round the earth — were 
science, settled by texts from the Bible, instead of by 

examining into the facts. So there was no freedom of 
inquiry even in scientific matters. A man who made 
discoveries in science might be stopped and punished 
if he found out that the old schoolmen were wrong in 
anything. 

Under the scholastic system the Christian religion, 
which in the days of Christ and the apostles was a thing 
and religion °f tne heart ove of God and one's neigh- 
als0 > bour), had grown into a theology — a thing of 

the head. The chief handybook of the theology of the 
schoolmen was a great folio volume of more than 1,000 
pages. 

Thus the scholastic system necessarily kept both 
science and religion the property of a clerical class, and 
out of the hands of the common people, to whom 
and kept Latin was a dead language ; while at the 

them from same time it kept the learning even of the 

the common r ° 

people. .learned world shackled by scholastic rules. 

It is important to see this clearly, because one great 



CH. II. 



The Scholastic System. 



13 



part of the work of the new era was to throw the gates of 
knowledge open to all men, and to set the . . 

minds of men free from this clerical or scho- mental free- 
lastic thraldrom— to set both science and dom - 
religion free, for freedom was as important to the one as 
it was to the other. Without it there could be no real 
progress in civilisation. 

The universities were the great centres of The Univer- 
the learned world. sities - 




UNIVERSITIES. T/iOSs founded before 140O underlined 



There were thirty or forty of them scattered over 
Europe, and they were in more or less close connexion 
with each other. Most of them are marked on the map, 
and those founded before 1400 are underlined. The 
oldest and most celebrated were Oxford and Cambridge in 
England, Paris and Orleans in France, Bologna and Padua 
in Italy, and Salamanca in Spain, Prague in Bohemia, 
and Cologne in Germany. These, at the beginning of the 



14 State of Christendom. PT . r. 

era of the Reformation, were all more than a hundred, 
and some two hundred years old. The youngest uni- 
versity in Europe was that of Wittenberg, founded in 1 502 
by the Elector of Saxony. 

Students were in the habit of passing from one uni- 
versity to another. Oxford students would pass on to 
Paris, and from Paris to Bologna, to take their 
pass from one degrees. And wherever there happened to be 
to another. a f amous professor, thither students from all 
other universities flocked. 

Now the result of this was very important. 

As one example, we may take the great movement in 
the fourteenth century in the direction of reform. 

Wiclif wrote books in Latin at Oxford. They were 
copied and read all over Europe. Oxford students went 
The result of to the newly-opened university at Prague. 
days 1 "/ 116 Wiclif s writings made as much noise, and . 
Wiclif. were as well known in Bohemia as they were 

in England. Huss and Jerome of Prague became 
the Bohemian successors of the English Wiclif, and thus 
the movement in favour of reform was transplanted 
from one country to another. What was discussed among 
the learned soon trickled down into the common talk of 
the people. So there arose out of Wiclif s movement the 
Lollard insurrection in England and the Hussite wars in 
Bohemia. 

What had thus happened before in the days when 
books were multiplied only by the slow work of the pen 
was still more likely to happen again in the days of the 
printing press. 

We shall see how in the new era these things were re- 
peated — how the spirit of revival of learning and religious 
reform spread, first among the learned from 

Will be re- . r ' . . . & 

peatedinthe university to university by students passing 
new era. from one to another, now in Italy, now into 



ch. ii. The Scholastic System. 15 

England, now into Germany, and how at last it trickled 
down into the minds of the common people all over Europe. 
The fact that both the ecclesiastical system and the 
learned world were coextensive with Christendom, and so 
closely united together, gave to Christendom a unity 
which alone made the work of the era possible. It was 
as though, in spite of distance and the dim- The work of 
culties of travelling, learned men were nearer the era - 
together than even now, in these days of railroads and 
steamboats and telegraphs. The work of the era was to 
rend Christendom asunder. Rome was no longer to be her 
capital. The Pope was no longer to be recognised every- 
where as her spiritual head. The Latin language was no 
longer to be the common tongue of literature and books 
all over Europe. Young nations were to divide Europe 
between them, to have their own churches and clergy, 
their own languages, their own literature, their own 
learned men and universities, and so to become more 
independent of each other and of Rome. And this was 
one of the stages through which Christian civilisation was 
to pass in its onward course. 



(V) The Feudal System, and the forces which were 
breaking it up. 

There was another system which was opposed to the 
growth of modern nations — the feudal system. The feudal 
It belonged to the old order of things, and s y stem - 
was fast decaying and going out. 

The feudal system hindered the growth of free na- 
tions, not by tending too much to keep up the Divided 
unity of Christendom, but by dividing coun- i^ n JJ£ t s 
tries up into innumerable petty lordships. lordships. 

Each feudal lord was a little sovereign both as re- 
gards those below him — his vassals and serfs — and also 



16 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

as regards his fellows, except so far as he and they were 
controlled by higher feudal powers above them. He 
waged what petty wars he chose with his neighbours, 
and lorded it over his vassals and serfs, whilst himself 
very jealously resisting any unusual interference from 
powers above him. 

The feudal system had already shown 
feudal signs of falling to pieces, and in some countries 

system. jjad ver y muc h died out. 

In some countries the petty lordships had fallen quite 
under the power of the Crown. 

By a long process, some of the feudal lords had grown 
Subjection of * n P ower > while the multitude of smaller ones 
feudal lords had sunk into ever-increasing insignificance. 
Especially in countries where by the rule 
of inheritance lordships descended only to the eldest 
male heir, there was a natural tendency for lordships to 
unite by marriage and inheritance. The greater families 
intermarried and grew richer, and the royal family was 
in fact the one which had grown so much bigger than the 
rest that it kept swallowing up more and more into itself. 
We shall see that it was so notably in France. The process 
went on more slowly in Germany, where the rule of inheri- 
tance was division among the male heirs, and so the ten- 
dency was towards more and more division, and an ever- 
increasing host of petty lordships. In Germany the 
feudal system was still in full force, and we shall see by- 
and-by how it prevented her from growing into a compact 
nation, and how much she had to suffer for want of the 
nobles being subjected to a central authority able to 
preserve the public peace and to curb their 

Increasing , , * _, , . 

power of the lawlessness and tyranny. But speaking gene- 
Crown, rally, things were more and more working Jki 
the new era towards the complete subjection of the feudal 
nobility in each nation to the central power, i.e. towards 
the supremacy of the Crown. 



A 



ch. ii„ The Feudal System. 1 7 

But co7mnerce was breaking up the feudal system faster 
than anything else, and commerce had its chief seat in the 
towns. Trade, commerce, and manufactures were the life of 
the towns. The little towns were the markets of the country 
round, and their trade lay between the peasan- The g^^ 
try and the bigger towns. These, in their turn, of commerce. 
lived upon the' share they had in that wider commerce of the 
world, of which, by the aid of Map No. 2 (at the beginning 
of this volume), we must now try to grasp the main features. 

The Crusades had done much to open up a commerce 
between Asia and Europe. This commerce m , 

. , , _ » - 1 i i r -1 Trade of the 

with the East was mostly in the hands of the Mediterra- 
great cities on the Mediterranean Sea. The nean * 
new way to the Indies was not yet open. The products 
of the East, its spices and its silks, were carried overland 
from the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to the Levant, and 
then shipped to the ports of Italy. Silk manufactures 
were also carried on in Italy, in Catalonia in Spain, and 
at Lyons in France. These eastern products and silks 
were the chief exports of the Mediterranean merchants. 

The commerce of the North Sea was equally important. 

The woollen manufactures of the north were its chief 
feature. Spain exported wool and some parts of Germany, 
but England was the great wool-growing country. The 
wool was woven into cloth in the looms of the eastern 
counties of England, and Flanders on the „,„ 

1 r -1 -kt i r, r™ ^he manu- 

opposite , shore of the North Sea. These factoring 
were the chief manufacturing districts, though dlstncts - 
other towns in England, up the Rhine,, and in Germany, 
had their weavers also. There were also considerable 
linen manufactures in the north of France. 

The North Sea was the great fishing ground, and 
dried fish was a great article of commerce The 
when during Lent and on every Friday all fisheries, 
Christendom lived upon fish. 
C 



1 8 State of Christendom. 



PT. I. 



There was also a trade in furs and skins with North 
Russia, Norway, and Sweden. 

This commerce of the North was carried on by the 
Hanse towns— reaching from the shores of the Baltic 
westward to the Netherlands, and inland in 
merce of the Germany as far south as Cologne. There were 
Hanse towns. e igh t y towns belonging to this league, and 
they had stations or factories at Novgorod, Bergen, 
London, and Bruges. 

Bruges in Flanders had been, and now Antwerp was 
the great central mart of the commerce of the world. 
Bruges and Here the merchants of the North exchanged 
^Smarts their g oods with the merchants of the 
ofcommerce. Mediterranean. Here their ships met and 
divided the maritime commerce of the world be- 
tween them. Here, too, the maritime met the inland 
and overland trade — inland trade with the German 
j. s f towns, overland trade up the Rhine, 

maritime, through Germany, over the Alps, by the 
overland 11 Brenner and Julier passes into Italy. There 
trade. was muc ri trade between German and 

Venetian merchants, and the contemporary historian, 
Machiavelli, states that all Italy was in a manner supplied 
with the commodities and manufactures of Germany. 
Since the Netherlands and Austria fell into the hands of 
the House of Hapsburg, and Maximilian was Emperor of 
Germany, there had also naturally sprung up a trade 
between the Rhine and the Danube. 

These were the great lines of trade, and in these lines 
lay the chief commercial towns, living on their share in 
the commerce of the world. 

Under the feudal system the towns had once been 
mostly subject to feudal lords, but they had 
had 6 mostly early shown their independent spirit, and re- 
got free. belled, or bargained for charters of freedom. 



ch. ii. The Feudal System. 19 

A free town was a little republic, organized for protection 
from foes without and for peaceful trade within. The 
members of each trade were banded together into guilds 
for mutual protection, and there was generally a sort of 
representative government — an upper and lower council 
of citizens, by whom the town was governed. 

We can easily understand how likely the towns were 
to hate the feudal lords, whose petty wars dis- „ TT , 
turbed the public peace and made commerce towns hated 
hazardous. They had to fortify themselves feudalism 
against these petty wars, and their cavalcades of .mer- 
chandize had to be protected by soldiers on the roads. So 
there had grown up out of commerce an anti-feudal 

power in Europe. In almost every country the 

iii! 1 1 . 1 an( l 

towns banded themselves together against the favoured the 

feudal system, and when the power of the Crovvn - 

Crown began to rise, the towns were the stepping-stones by 

which it rose to the top. Kings invited the towns to 

send burgesses to the national Diets or Parliaments, and 

they were a growing power in almost every State. 

There was yet another most numerous and most im- 
portant class affected by feudalism — the peasantry. The 
peasants, under the feudal system, were more The feudal 
or less reduced to a condition of vassalage or peasantry, 
serfdom. 

Let us understand what this was. The tribes who 
conquered Northern and Western Europe were a land- 
folk — people living by the land. They settled Oncejnore 
in villages, and all the land belonging to free than 
each village belonged to the community, as it feudal sys- 
does now in Swiss valleys. The people were tem> 
tenants only of their little .allotments, with common .rights 
over the unallotted pasture, woo.ds, forests, and livers .: i.e.. 
they had a common or joint use of them. 

Now the feudal system had put the feudal lords in 



20 State of Christendom. PT . r . 

the place of the community. The peasantry became 
tenants of these lords, paying rents sometimes in money, 
but chiefly in services of labour on their lords' lands. 
The lords, moreover, claimed more and more of the 
unallotted portion of the common lands as their own. 
The serfs were not allowed to leave their land, because it 
would rob the lords of their services. So the lords held 
their peasantry completely in their power. This was 
feudal serfdom when in full force. In some countries it 
was still in force, in others it had almost disappeared. 

In those countries where the lords were most sub- 
jected to the Crown, as in France and England, the 
where the serfs were likely to be best off and farthest 
central advanced on the road to freedom. In those 

power was 

weakest, in which the feudal lords were least sub- 

domlipgered dued, and the central power least formed, 
longest. as [ n Germany, we should expect to find 

feudal serfdom lingering on. And it was so. 

As the towns were the enemies of the feudal nobility, 
so they were the friends of the feudal peasantry. Com- 
merce introduced everywhere money pay- 
ancfcom" ments instead of barter. Payment of rent in 
merce fa- services of labour was an old-fashioned kind 

voured free- 
dom of the of barter. Commerce, therefore, helped to 
peasantry. introduce money rents and money wages, 
and where these were early introduced, as in France and 
England, the condition of the peasant was much im- 
proved. But more than this ; labour was often wanted 
in the towns : the wages paid in the towns often tempted 
the peasant to desert his land and feudal lord, and to 
flee to a town. The towns favoured this immigration 
into them of runaway serfs, and there grew up in some 
countries a settled rule of law that after residence in a 
town a year and a day they could not be reclaimed. 

Thus we see clearly how the feudal system was break- 



ch. in. Italy. 21 

ing up under the influence of commerce and the combined 
power of the towns and the Crown. 

The petty lordships were becoming united into the 
larger unit of the nation, but we see on the other hand 
what a danger there was of the nation becoming divided 
into hostile classes. How were classes so contrarient as 
the feudal lords, the townspeople, and the peasantry, to 
be blended in one national life ? This was the great 
problem modern civilisation had to solve, and some 
nations succeeded much better than others in solving it. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MODERN NATIONS WHICH WERE RISING 
INTO POWER. 

(a) Italy. 
No country had made less progress towards becoming a 
compact and united nation than Italy, the Not a united 
very country in which Rome, the capital of natlon - 
Christendom, exercised most influence. 

The contemporary historian, Machiavelli, shows how 
Rome was the cause of Italy's ruin and dis- „ 

J Rome, ac- 

Unity. ' cording to 

He c c • • ^ ^ ^i Machiavelli, 

e says : l Some are of opinion that the t h e cause of 

welfare of Italy depends upon the Church of her disunity. 

Rome. I shall set down two unanswerable reasons to the 

contrary : — 

' (i) By the corrupt example of that court Italy has 
lost its religion and become heathenish and irreligious. 

' (2) We owe to Rome also that we are become divided 



22 State of Christendom. pf. i. 

and factious, which must of necessity be our ruin, for no 
nation was ever happy or united unless under the rule of 
one commonwealth or prince, as France and Spain are at 
this time. And the reason is that the Pope, though he 
claims temporal as well as spiritual jurisdiction, is not 
strong enough to rule all Italy himself, and whenever he 
sees any danger he calls in some foreign potentate to help 
him against any other power growing strong enough to 
be formidable. Therefore it is that, instead of getting 
united under one rule, Italy is split up into several prin- 
cipalities, and so disunited that it falls easily a prey to the 
power not only of the barbarians, but of any one who 
cares to invade it. This misfortune we Italians owe only 
to the Church of Rome.' 

That these words of Machiavelli were too strictly 
true, we shall judge from the facts. 

We have seen what was the power of Rome. If 

exerted in favour of Christian civilisation how many 

blessings might not the Church have earned ! 

Rome a _ . . . . 

centre of But it was notorious to everyone living at the 

rottenness. time that R ome usea < h er p 0W er so ill, and 

that her own character and that of her Popes were so 
evil, that she had become both politically and spiri- 
tually the centre of wickedness and rottenness in Europe 
and especially in Italy. 

And this was no new thing. Men had been complain- 
ing of it for generations. The greatest poets of Italy 
Dante on the had long before immortalized the guilt of 
Popes. Rome. Two centuries before, Dante had de- 

scribed the Popes of his day as men 

whose avarice 
O'ercasts the world with mourning, under foot 
Treading the good, and raising bad men up. 
Of Shepherds like to you, the Evangelist 
Was ware, when her who sits upon the waves 
With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld ! 



CH. III. 



Italy. 23 



And soon after Dante, Petrarch had described p et rarch on 
Rome thus :— Rome - 

Once Rome ! now false and guilty Babylon ! 

Hive of deceits ! Terrible prison, 

Where the good doth die, the bad is fed and fattened ! 

Hell of the living ! . . . . 

Sad world that dost endure it ! Cast her out ! 

And in the days of these great poets, Reformers and 
Councils too, had tried to reform Rome, but without 
avail. A few more generations had passed and Rome 
was now not only unreformed but in respect to morals 
worse than ever. How much worse we know not only 
from the censures of her poets, but from the facts of her 
contemporary historians. 

The Popes of Rome had for long not only wielded 
both political and spiritual power, but used 

.-,■,.. «--.,. 1 Recent 

them to enrich their own families ; and as a p ope s bad 
rule they had recently been notoriously bad men- 
men. 

Alexander VI. was the reigning Pope, and the worst 
Rome ever had. His wicked reign lasted from 1492 to 1503. 
His great aim was to bring Rome, and if he Alexander 
could, all Italy, into the hands of his still 2La? d 
wickeder son Caesar Borgia. The latter Borgia, 
caused his own brother to be stabbed and thrown 
into the Tiber. He had his brother-in-law assassinated 
on his palace-steps. He stabbed one of his father's 
favourites who had taken shelter under the pontifical 
robes, so that the blood spirted into the Pope's face. 
Rich men were poisoned to get their wealth. Their 
The reign of these Borgias was a reign of crimes. 
terror in Rome. At last, in 1 503, the Pope fell, it is said, 
into his own trap, and died of the poison he had prepared 
for another. 

Another great Italian historian of the time, Guic- 



24 



State of Christendom. 



PT. I. 



ciardini, records that the body of the Pope, black and 
loathsome, was exposed to public view in St. Peter's. 
And he goes on to say : — 

* All Rome flocked to that sight, and could not suf- 
ficiently satiate their eyes with gazing on the remains of 
the extinct serpent, who by his immoderate ambition, 
pestiferous perfidy, monstrous lust, and every sort of 
horrible cruelty and unexampled avarice — selling without 
distinction property sacred and profane — had compassed 
the destruction of so many by poison, and was now 
become its victim ! ' 

Machiavelli was right then, that the example of Rome 

in Italy was an evil one. That it made the Italians hate 

the Church, and drove thinking men, while 

Effect of the . . , . . , , ' . 

Pope's they remained superstitious, to doubt Chns- 

wickedness. tianity, and to welcome even Pagan religions, 
because they seemed so much purer than that which 
Rome offered them, we shall see by-and-by. This is 
what he meant when he spoke of the Italians becoming 
' heathenish ' — it was exactly the fact 

And now as to his other statement, that Rome was 
the cause of the divisions, 
and therefore of the ruin 
of Italy; this also,thefacts 
of the recent history of 
Italy will make clear. 

The map shows how 
Italy was in the main 
divided — Venice, Milan, 
„ . ,. . and Florence 

Main divi- .. 1 

sions of to the north ; 

Italy. 



Naples to the 
south ; the States of the 
Church between. 

(i) The States of the Church. Over these the Popes 
had a shadowy kind of rule, but they were made up 




CH. III. 



Italy. 25 



of petty lordships and cities, claiming independence, 
and even Rome was ruled by its Barons p apal 
rather than by the Popes ; or to speak more States. 
correctly the Barons and the Pope were always quarrelling 
which of the two should rule. The Pope lived in his 
strong castle of St. Angelo, close by the city. 

(2) Venice was a commercial city, 1,000 years old, 
ruled by its nobles and possessing territory like ancient 
Rome, ruled for the benefit of its citizens 

Venice 

rather than its subjects. 

(3) Florence was also a commercial republic, but not 
governed by its nobles. It was a democratic republic, 
but one family of citizens — the Medici — had 

grown by trade richer than the rest, and 
usurped almost despotic power. It also possessed con- 
siderable territory. . 

(4) Milan was a State to which there were many rival 
claims. The King of France, as Duke of Orleans, claimed 
it by inheritance from the Dukes of Milan. 

The King of Naples (and Spain through him) 
also had a claim, and the Emperor of Germany claimed it 
as having reverted to the Empire. Meanwhile the Sforza 
family had possession, and kept it off and on till 15 12. 

(5) Naples was also a State to which there were rival 
claims. Its nobles had usurped almost uncontrolled 
power. The right to feudal sovereignty over it was dis- 
puted between the Counts of Anjou (France) 

and the' King of Arragon (Spain). The latter 
had long had possession, and it had descended to a bas- 
tard branch of that house. 

That the Popes were continually fomenting quarrels 
between these Italian States and bringing ' barbarian ' 
princes to fight their battles on Italian soil, a few facts 
will show. 

Alexander VI. and Caesar Borgia first stirred up 
Venice and Milan against Naples. Then the allies invited 



26 State of Christendom. PT . i. 

Charles VIII. of France, who in 1494 crossed the Alps, 
overturned the Medici at Florence, and entered Naples 
in 1495. Then in 1495 the Pope, Venice, and Milan 
joined with Ferdinand of Spain in turning the Fre7ich 
out of Naples again. 

In 1500 Louis XII. of France took Milan, and then 
he and Ferdinand of Spain jointly invaded Naples. But 
they quarrelled, and Spain, under Gonsalvo de 
ticfthe ruin Cordova, defeated the French, and so Ferdi- 
of Italy. nand became King of Naples, and (having 

Sardinia and Sicily before) of the two Sicilies in 1 505. 

I n I5°3 Julius II. became Pope, and devoted his ten 
years' reign to constant war. In 1509 he, France, Spain, 
and Germany formed the League of Cambray against 
Venice. But the robbers quarrelled on the eve of victory, 
and so Venice was not ruined. 

In 151 1 Louis XII. of France tried to get Henry VIII. 
of England to join him in deposing Julius 1 1. But Julius 
succeeded in getting England and Spain and Germany 
to join his ' Holy League ' against France. 

After driving Louis XII. of Fra?ice out of Italy, 
Julius II. died in 15 13, and was succeeded by Leo X. 

(b) Germany. 

Next to Italy, Germany was furthest of all modern 

nations from having attained national unity. The Ger- 

man, or, as it called itself, ' the Holy Roman ' 

Had not yet . ' J 

attained Lmpire, was a power which belonged to the 

national oM Qrder of things _ Like ^ p Qpe Qf Rom ^ 

Th Em the Em P eror considered himself as the head 

peror of Christendom. He called himself ' Caesar,' 

be a Ss d ar t0 and ' Kin S of Rome ; ' and, as successor to 
and King of the Roman Empire, which the Germans had 
conquered, claimed not only a feudal chief- 



Germany. 



27 



tainship over nations of German origin, but also a sort of 
vague sovereignty over all lands. As the Pope of Rome 
was the spiritual head, so the Emperor considered himself 
the ' temporal head of all Christian people.' 

Switzerland had indeed severed herself from the Ger- 
man Empire. England, Spain, and France had never 
properly belonged to it. But the French king had never- 
theless sometimes sworn fealty to the Empire ; and even 
Henry VIII. of England, when it suited his purpose 
(i.e. when he wanted to be Emperor !) took care to point 
out to the Electors that, while his rival, Francis I. of 
France, was a foreigner, in electing an Eng- His claim to 
lish Emperor, they would not be departing empSJyery 
from the German tongue. On other occa- shadowy, 
sions he took care to insist that England, however Saxon 
in her speech, had never been subject to the Empire. So 
the claim to universal sovereignty was very shadowy 
indeed. 

When a vacancy occurred, the new Emperor was 
elected, under the 'Golden 
BulPof 1356, by How 
seven Prince elected. 
Electors, viz. : [On the 
Rhine]. The three Arch- 
bishops of Mayence, Treves, 
and Cologne, and the Count 
Palatine of the Rhine. [On 
the Elbe]. The King of 
Bohemia, the Elector of 
Saxony, the Margrave of 
Brandenburg. 
The ceremony of coronation showed the feudal 
nature of the Empire. When elected, the Emperor 
attended high mass. Then the Archbishop of May- 
ence, assisted by Cologne and Treves, de- The feudal 
manded of him, 'Will you maintain the ceremon y- 




THE SEVEN PRINCE ELECTORS 



28 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

Catholic faith ? ' i I will.' Then he demanded of his 
brother electors, '■' Will you recognise the elected as 
Emperor ? ' l So be it' Then he was robed in the robes, 
girt with the- sword, and crowned with the crown of 
Charlemagne. Then came the banquet. The King of 
Bohemia, in true feudal fashion, was the imperial cup- 
bearer ; the Count Palatine carved the first slice from 
the roasted ox ; the Duke of Saxony rode up to his 
stirrups into a heap of oats, and filled a measure with 
grain for his lord ; and lastly, the Margrave of Branden- 
burg rode to a fountain and filled the imperial ewer 
with water. 

When elected, the Emperor had little real power in 
Germany ; and, indeed, as time went on he seemed to 
have less and less. 

Once large domains had belonged to the Emperor : 
some in Italy, some on the Rhine. But former emperors 

. had lost or ceded the Italian estates to Italian 

perial nobles and cities during struggles with the 

domains. p opes . whik those Qn the Rhine had been 

handed over to the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and 
Cologne, who were Electors, to secure votes and political 
support. For some generations there had been no im- 
perial domains at all ; not an inch of territory in Germany 
or Italy came to the Emperor with his imperial crown. 
The Empire was therefore reduced to a mere feudal head- 
ship. 

Nor had the Emperor, as feudal head, much power in 
Germany. He found it very hard to get troops or money 
from the German people. Maximilian, the 
imperial reigning Emperor, was notoriously poor, and 

power. declared that the Pope drew a hundred times 

larger revenue out of Germany than he did. He was a 
powerful sovereign in Europe because he was head of the 
Austrian house of Hapsburg, which was rising into great 
power in Europe by its alliances. 



CH. III. 



Germany. 29 



Already possessed of Austria and Bohemia, Maxi- 
milian had married Mary of Burgundy and the Nether- 
lands. His son Philip thus was heir-apparent The 
to those provinces as well as Austria. Philip 5 r mp . er< ?F. 
married J oanna, daughter of I sabella of S pain ; f the 
and so their son Charles became heir to HousTof 
Spain also. Thus was the House of Hapsburg Hapsburg. 
pushing itself into power and influence. The German 
Empire was the crowning symbol of their power rather 
than the reason of it, In the case of Maximilian, it was 
the power of Austria that made the German Emperor 
great. By-and-by, as we shall see when 
Charles V. of Austria, Spain, and the Nether- 
lands rises to the Empire and becomes the most powerful 
prince in Europe, it is by Spain, not Germany, that he 
wields his still greater influence. 

The power of the Emperor was far less in Germany 
than in his own domains, for in Germany his power was 
checked by the Diet or feudal parliament of 
the Empire. The Diet was a feudal, not a re- 
presentative parliament ; i.e. only the Emperor's feudal 
vassals had a claim to attend and vote in it. 

The Diet met and voted in three separate houses : 

1. The Electors (except the King of Bohemia, who 

had no voice except in the election of an 
Emperor). 

2. The Princes, lay and ecclesiastical. 

3. The Free Imperial Cities (i.e. those cities which 

held direct of the Emperor). 
The Electors and Princes had most power. Only what 
was agreed upon by them was last of all submitted to the 
House of Cities. To secure the carrying out 
of the decrees of the Diets, there had also £°P f ™ e e r 
recently been some attempts at an organiza- their 
tion of the Empire. It was divided in circles 



30 State of Christendom. 'pf. i. 

for the maintenance of order ; but this, though plausible 
on paper, had little effect in reality, because the Diets 
had no real power to enforce their decrees. 

Germany was, in fact, still under the feudal system — 
still divided up into petty lordships— more so 

The feudal . i_ ' ' \.i_ 

system still than perhaps any other country ; certainly 

prevailed. m0 re so than England, Spain, or France. 

One reason for this was, as we have seen, that the 

German law of inheritance divided the lordships between 

Subdivision the sons of a feudal lord on his death ; so 

of lordships there was constant subdivision, and in con- 
by law ot ' . 

inheritance, sequence an ever-mcreasmg host of petty 
sovereignties. 

The mass of the feudal lords were petty and poor, 
and yet proud and independent, resisting any attempts 
Constant °f tl[ie powers above them, whether Emperor, 

petty feuds. or Diets, or Princes to control them. They 
claimed the right of waging war ; and, by their petty feuds, 
the public peace was always being broken. 

They lived a wild barbarian life in times of peace 
{i.e. when not at feud with some neighbouring lord), 
devoted to the chase, trampling over their tenants' crops, 
scouring the woods with their retainers and their dogs. 
In times of war and feuds, with helmets, breastplates, and 
cross-bows they lay in ambush in the forests watching an 
enemy, or fell upon a train of merchants on the roads 
from some town or city with which they had a quarrel. 
They became as wild and lawless as the wolves. 

Gotz von Berlichingen (popularly known as * Gotz with 
the Iron Hand '), and Franz von Sickingen were types of 
this wild knighthood. They were champions 
^aw essne G f fist-law (faust-recht). They called it private 
kmghts. war ^ k ut j t was ft en plunder and pillage by 

which they lived. Gotz was indeed more like the head 
of a band of robbers than anything else. He one day 



en. in. Germany. 3 I 

saw a pack of wolves fall upon a flock of sheep. ' Good 
luck, dear comrades,' said Gotz ; ' good luck to us all and 
everywhere!' These lawless knights were indeed like 
wolves, and, just as much as the wild animals they 
hunted, belonged to the old order of things, which must 
go out to make way for advancing civilisation. 

The free towns of Germany were her real strength. 
The citizens were thrifty, earned much by their com- 
merce, spent little, and so saved much. Each The towns 
city was a little free state (for they had mostly of Germany. 
thrown off their feudal lords), self-governed, like a little 
republic, fortified, well stored with money in its treasury, 
a year's provisions and firing often stored up against a 
siege. The little towns were of course dependent in 
part on the peasantry round, buying their corn, and in 
return supplying them with manufactured goods. But 
the bigger towns lived by a wider commerce, and held 
their heads above the peasantry. Above all, they hated 
the feudal lords, whose feuds and petty wars and lawless 
deeds put their commerce in peril. Two hun- Their 
dred years ago, sixty towns on the Rhine had ^f" e i S for 
leagued themselves together to protect their defence. 
commerce. After that had come the league 1 of the 
Hanse Towns, chiefly in the North .of Germany, but 
including Cologne and twenty-nine adjacent towns, and 
aiming at defending commerce from robberies by land as 
well as piracy by sea. 

They had to form these leagues because Germany 
was divided and without a real head — not yet a nation — 
though all that was good and great in it was w f 
sighing for more national life, for a central central 
representative power strong enough to main- maintain the 
tain the public peace, but hitherto sighing in P ubl -cp e ace. 

1 See the Map of Commerce. 



32 State of Christendom. pt. l 

vain, finding in her Emperor little more help than Italy 
found in her Pope. 

No class in Germany had suffered more from want of 
a central power than the peasantry. They still were in 
The con- feudal serfdom. While in other countries, 
d easr n tr the w ^ ere there was a well-established central 
growing government, the lot of the peasantry had im- 

harder for proved and serfdom almost been got rid of, 
c'en'trai 5 a ^ere * n Germany their lot had grown harder 
power. and harder for want of it. 

The German peasant, or 'Bauer] was still a feudal 
tenant. In many ways he was no doubt better off than a 
labourer for wages. His house was no mere labourer's 
cottage — it was a little farm. He had about him his land 
and his live stock, his barn and his stack. Under the 
same roof with his family his cows and pigs lay upon their 
straw and he upon his bed. On the raised cooking hearth 
the wood crackled under the great iron pot hung on its 
rack from the chimney-hood above, while saucepans and 
gridirons, pewter dishes and pitchers with their pewter lids 
were hung upon the walls ; the oak table and coffer were 
heirlooms with his house and his land. In mere outward 
comforts many a free peasant, working for wages and 
having no land to till for himself, would gladly have 
changed places with him ; but behind all was his thraldom 
to his feudal lord. 

He had traditions of old and better days, when he was 
far more free, when his services were not so hard and the 
exactions of his lord not so great. But in 
thef German the fourteenth century the Black Death had 
* Bauer.' thinned the population of Germany and made 

labour scarce. In other countries, where the law of the 
land had fixed the amount of the services, and where the 
influence of commerce had substituted money-payments 
for services, this scarcity of labour strengthened the 



ch. in. Germany. 33 

peasant in his struggle for freedom. But in Germany, 
where there was no law to step in, and where services 
continued, the scarcity of labour was only likely to make 
the lords insist all the more upon their performance ; and 
so they had encroached more and more on the peasants' 
rights, exacted more and more labour from them, in- 
creased their burdens, robbed them more and more of 
their common rights over the pastures, the wild game, 
and the fish in the rivers, grown more and more insolent, 
till the peasants in some places had sunk almost into 
slavery. It was galling to them to have to work for their 
lords in fine weather, and to have to steal in their own 
little crops on rainy days. Small a thing as it might be, 
perhaps it was still more galling to receive orders on 
holidays to turn out and gather wild strawberries for the 
folk at the Castle. Hard, too, it seemed to them when, 
on the death of a peasant, the lord's agent came and 
carried off from the widow's home the heriot or ' best 
chattel,' according to feudal custom — perhaps the horse 
or the cow on which the family was dependent. 

But however bad a pass things might come to, there 
was no remedy — no law of the land to appeal to against 
the encroachments of their lords. The Roman 
civil law had indeed been brought in by the his only 
ecclesiastics, and the lords favoured it because remed y- 
it tended to regard serfs as slaves. The serfs naturally 
hated it because it hardened their lot. There was no 
good in appealing to it. It was one of their grievances. 
So the peasants of each place must fight it out with their 
own lords. They must rebel or submit, waiting for better 
days, if ever these should come ! 



34 



State of Christendom. 



PT. I. 



Spain 
Europe. 



(c) Spain. 
was destined to become the first power in 



Becoming 
the first 
power in 
Europe. 



She rapidly grew into a united nation, and 
during the era attained the highest point of 
power and prosperity she ever reached ; but 
she fell soon after from the pinnacle on which 
she then stood, and has never since risen again so high. 

Ever since the conquest of Spain by the Goths and 
Vandals, in the fifth century, it had been a feudal 
Power of the nation; and, as in most other feudal coun- 
nobies. tries, the power had got into the hands of the 

feudal lords or nobles . But Spain was singular in this, 
that it had passed under a long period of Mohammedan 
rule. 




By the invasions of the Moors the feudal chiefs of 

Spain had been driven up into the mountains of the 

^ . . north, while probably the peasantry mostly re- 

Driven into • , . i i t_. 

the north by mamed in the conquered country, subject to 

the Moors. the Moors. By slow degrees the feudal chiefs 

reconquered the northern provinces, till the Moors retained 

only the rich southern provinces ; and as bit after bit was 

reconquered by the nobles, it became a little independent 

state under the feudal chief who reconquered it. 



CH. III. 



Spain. 3 5 



Already, however, there had grown up in Spain the 
three kingdoms of Castile, Arragon, and Navarre, favoured 
by the influence of the towns. Owing to the R econquest 
constant struggles going on there had been ofSpainfrom 
for long no safety except in the towns. These except°Gra- 
had further grown in power and importance nada - 
by trade and manufactures, and had become little states — 
like little Venices — each with its independent government. 

Both in ' Castile and Arragon the monarch was 
scarcely more powerful than the Emperor in Germany. 
His power was controlled by the Cortes or 

, . -i-i t 11-1 Kingdoms of 

parliament, at which met the nobles, depu- Castiieand 
ties from the towns, and clergy. And to the Arra s° 1 ^ 
Cortes belonged the power of levying taxes and enacting 
laws. 

Such was the state of things when, by the marriage of 
Ferdinand of Arragon to Isabella of Castile (in 148 1), all 
Spain, except Navarre and Granada, was . , 

. ' . . . united under 

united under one monarchy, and from this Ferdinand 
time the tendency was for the throne to be- and Isabella - 
come more and more absolute. It was one fomesmore 
of the first objects of Ferdinand and Isabella and more 
to extend the power of the monarchy. 

Spain had found, as the Germans had found, that 
without some central power it was hard to keep the 
peace, to protect trade and commerce, and to put down 
robbery and crime. The cities had united in a ' Holy 
Brotherhood ' for this purpose, and Ferdinand sided with 
them in- this object. But what more than anything else 
counteracted the feudal tendency to separate into little 
petty states, and to strengthen the national feeling and 
make it rally round the common centre of the conquest of 
throne, was the war long waged by Ferdi- Granada, 
nand, and at length successful, against the last strong- 
hold of the Moors in Granada, In 1492 Granada was 
d 2 



36 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

taken, the 700 years' struggle ended, and the Moors were 
driven for ever out of Spain. Thus was all Spain (except 
the little state of Navarre, under shelter of the Pyrenees) 
united in one nation. The modern kingdom of Spain, 
thus formed, rose up at once to be one of the first powers 
of Europe. 

We have already seen how Charles VIII. of France 
had been invited by the Pope and his allies to attack 
Ferdinand's Naples. As a bribe to keep Ferdinand (who 
policy to had a rival claim on Naples) quiet while he 

Spafn. went on this raid on Naples, he had ceded to 

Ferdinand the little state of Perptgnan, on the Spanish 
side of the Pyrenees. Ferdinand was intent on the com- 
pletion of the kingdom of Spain, and took the bribe. We 
shall soon find him (in 1512) obtaining possession of 
Navarre. In the meantime the result of the Italian wars 
was that he got hold of Naples ; and having the islands 
of Sardinia and Sicily already, he became King of the 
' Two Sicilies,' as well as of Spain. 

Another fact added to the power of Spain. It was 
under Spanish auspices that Columbus discovered Ame- 
rica. This not only threw the gold of the mines of Peru 
into the treasuries of Spain ; it added an- 
other great laurel to her fame. It was Spain 
that had driven the Moors out of Western Europe ; it was 
Spain that enlarged Christendom by the discovery of the 
New World. 

The foreign policy of princes in those 
Hey 61 Mar- days was very much influenced by the mar- 
riages, riages they planned and effected for their 
children. 

Ferdinand's first aim was to get all the Spanish Pen- 
insula under the power of the Spanish Crown. So he 
married his eldest daughter to the King of Portugal, in 
hopes of some day uniting the two Crowns. This came 



ch. in. Spain. 37 

to pass in the person of Philip II., the husband of the 
English Queen Mary. 

His next policy was to ally himself with such foreign 
powers as would best help him to secure his ends. There 
were two reasons why he did not ally himself with 
France. France was his rival in Italy. He had fought 
with France for Naples, and meant to keep it. He also 
wanted Navarre to complete the Spanish kingdom. 
France claimed it also. The aim of Spanish foreign 
policy was, therefore, to work against France. 

By the marriage of his daughter Catherine to the 
King of England, and Joamia to the heir of the rising 
Austrian House of Hapsburg, who held the Netherlands, 
and whose head, Maximilian I., was Emperor of Germany, 
he connected himself with the two powers who, like him- 
self, were jealous of France — England, because part of 
France had so long been claimed as belonging to the 
English Crown — the House of Hapsburg, because France 
had got hold of part of Burgundy (which formerly belonged 
to the same Burgundian kingdom as the Netherlands). 

And on the whole, though his schemes did not 
prosper in his lifetime, they did succeed in 
making Spain the first power in Europe these aiii°- 
during the next reign. ances - 

When Queen Isabella died, Joanna became Queen of 
Castile. She, however, was insane, and her husband 
Philip dying soon after, Ferdinand held the reins of Castile 
in her name as Regent. On his death, in 15 16, Castile 
and Arragon were again united, under Charles V., and 
Spain became greater than ever. 

The domestic policy of Ferdinand and Isabella had 
also for its object the consolidation of Spain Domestic 
under their throne. Their great minister was P° hc y- 
Cardinal Ximenes, whose policy was to strengthen the 
central power of the Crown by engaging all Spain in a 



38 



State of Christendom. 



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ch. in. Spain. 39 

national war against the Moors, and by strengthening the 
towns (or loyal element) at the expense of the feudal 
nobles (the disloyal element, in Spain as elsewhere). The 
subjugation of the nobles to the Crown was Subjugation 
in great measure effected, and the Crown be- of the nobles. 
came more and more absolute. 

Not content with driving out of Spain the last rem- 
nant of the Mohammedan Moors, the Catholic The Tnquisi- 
zeal of the king and queen and Ximenes turned tion - 
itself against the Jews and heretics. They founded the 
1 Inquisition ' in Spain, which in a generation Banishment 
burned thousands of heretics. They expelled, of the jews, 
it is said, more than 100,000 Jews from their Spanish 
homes. These first took refuge in Portugal, and soon after, 
driven from thence, were scattered over Europe. 

But notwithstanding this zeal for the Catholic faith, 
by which Ferdinand and Isabella earned the title of ' the 
Catholic] there was no notion in the minds of Ximenes or 
his royal master and mistress to sacrifice Spain to Rome. 
They were as zealous in reforming the morals of the clergy 
and monks as in rooting out heresy. They demanded 
from the Pope bulls enabling them to visit and reform 
the monasteries. They claimed the right in 

, . . . , . , Independent 

many cases of appointing their own bishops, pbiicy to- 
And when the scandals of Alexander VI. 's wards Rome. 
wicked reign came to their knowledge, they threatened to 
combine with other sovereigns in his ' correction? 

One other thing we must notice. The discoveries of 
Columbus, followed up by the conquest of Mexico and 
Peru, gave to Spain suddenly a colonial em- colonial po- 
pire to govern. Her colonies in the New llQ y- 
World were in one sense the gem in her Crown. Her 
dreams of wealth in gold and silver were more than 
realized. To have extended Christendom into a new world 
seemed in itself a worthy exploit to the Catholic zeal of 



40 



State of Christendom. 



PT. I. 



Queen Isabella. Her royal anxiety to convert the heathen 
inhabitants of the new-found lands to the Catholic faith 
was no doubt as genuine as her anxiety to root heresy out 
of Spain. 

She sent out Catholic missionaries, but the selfishness of 
her Spanish colonists introduced slavery instead of Chris- 
tianity. In these first Spanish colonies was be- 
gun that cruel policy by which the native races 
were exterminated — worked to death — and then African 
negroes introduced to supply their place. The introduction 
of slavery, and its necessary feeder — the slave trade — was 
a blot upon the colonial policy, not only of Spain but of 
Christendom. It was essentially contrary to the genius 
of modern civilization, and we know how great a struggle 
has been needful in our own times to prevent its ruining 
the greatest of the colonies of the New World. 



(d) France. 

Machiavelli says, 'The kings of France are at this 
time more rich and powerful than ever/ So they were. 

The dynasty of the 
Capets, which began before 
How all the time of the 
Y iZ^t Norman conquest 
one nation. f England and 
lasted down to the '■Louis 
CapeV (Louis XVI.) who was 
put to death during the 
French Revolution, had now 
ruled France for about five 
hundred years. But the 
France, ruled by the first 
Capet was only the portion marked dark on the map. 
it was as though the King of England had ruled only 




THE GROWTH OF FRANCE. 



France. 



41 




Yorkshire. The rest of France was divided among the 

great Barons. 

These Baronies, or ' Duchies] had gradually been ab- 
sorbed into the kingdom. The dates when they thus fell 

in are marked on the map. 

Now if we look at 
France at the France 
beginning of jg^ 
the new era, we Naples also. 
shall see, from compar- 
ing the two maps, how 
she had grown, and how 
she claimed now not only 
all France but Milan and 
Naples also. She had, in 
fact, become the second 
great power in Europe, 
and, by aiming to become 

the first, made herself the great rival of Spain. 

What were the secrets of her growing power ? As we 

have seen, Machiavelli said that Italy was weaker than 

either Spain or France, because the latter were each of 

them united tinder one C?'own. 

We have now to mark the reasons given 

by him why the Duchies of France had become 

united under the Crown. 

(1) The Crown was not elective, as in Ger- 
many, but hereditary in the royal family. 

(2) The rule of inheritance m. France was 
not division among all the sons, but descent 
to the eldest son only. 

(3) Intermarriages with the royal family 
not only made the great Barons loyal to the 
throne, but sometimes united their Duchies 
to the Crown under one heir ; e.g. the kings 



This union 
of all France 
the result 
of— 

Crown here- 
ditary ; 



primo- 
geniture ; 



marriage 
with the 
royal family 



42 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

of France, as heirs of the Duchies of Anjou and Orleans, 
claimed both those Duchies and also their rights to Naples 
and Milan. 

(4) The towns, as in Spain and elsewhere, had 

favoured the growth of the central power as the best 

means of freeing themselves from their old 

Dwns ' feudal lords. Most of them had long ago 

obtained charters of freedom, and now held only of the 

Crown. 

The final struggle of the Crown with the great feudal 
Barons had been concluded just before the era corn- 
Final menced. It had been a hard struggle between 

cTth^Crown L ° UiS XI * End the Duke ° f Bur g und 7- The 

with king had prevailed, and from that time the 

Burgundy. unity q{ France was settled# S he had be- 
come powerful enough to hold her own against both 
internal and foreign foes. 

England had once claimed a great part of France, 
but there was henceforth no real chance of 

English con- , .... . ~. . . 

quests at an her getting it back again. She could no 
end- longer find allies on French soil against 

France. 

It is true that we shall find Henry VIII. still dream- 
ing sometimes of reversing the decision of the ' hundred 
years' war' which had ended in the withdrawal of Eng- 
land from all France except the town of Calais ; and we 
shall find Spain and England combining during the era 
more than once to crush France. But in reality the 
object of these wars we shall find to be not so much the 
dismemberment of France as opposition to the aggressive 
policy of Louis XII. and Francis I., and their invasions 
of Italy. 

The hundred years' war with England had also 
tended to consolidate the French nation. It was a 



ch. in. France. 43 

national and even popular struggle to turn out a foreign 
foe. It necessitated the levying of national The English 
armies and the payment of national taxes, h^edto 
It did for France, to some extent, what the unite the 
wars with the Moors did for Spain : it and increase 
strengthened the central power of the Crown, of e tfe Wer 
and gave it a recognised place as natural Crown; 
head and leader of the nation, in peace as well as in 
war. 

But the misfortune of France was that in outwardly 
becoming a great nation by uniting all the Duchies 
under the Crown, and so enlarging the size of but there 
France on the map, sad mistakes were made, ^disunion 
which prevented her growth in internal unity, within. 
which sowed the seeds of bitter feeling between 
classes, and ended in producing her Great Revolution. 

We cannot note too carefully these fatal mistakes. 

(1) The king got the power of levying taxes — the 
i taille > — without the consent of the people. 

The ' Estates General/ or French Parliament, without coni 

which had hitherto had a voice in matters of p^o Pl ° e f the 
taxation, hereafter had none ; the Crown be- 
came absolute. 

(2) The king, successful in his war against Ro al 
England, henceforth out of these taxes kept standing 
a large standing army. army ' 

These things, said Philip de Commines, the con- 
temporary French historian of Louis XL, 'gave a wound 
to his kingdom which will not soon be closed.' 

He was right, for these two things kept classes apart 
and broke up the internal unity of France. To see how 
they did this, let us look at each class separately. 

The nobility or noblesse of France were made into a 
permanently separate caste. In old times they paid no 
taille, because they gave their military services to the 



44 State of Christendom. PT . r. 

king in his wars. Now there was a standing army they 
were less and less needed as soldiers, yet their freedom 
The noblesse from taxation remained. They were a privi- 
un ? taxed Sed l e g e d class, and intermarried with one an- 
caste. other. Their estates went down to their 

eldest sons, but the younger sons, too, belonged to the 
noblesse. So they became a very numerous class, poor, 
but proud of their blood and freedom from taxes. 

The peasantry ; on the other hand, were the bur- 
Thepeasan- dened class. In some respects they were much 
try not serfs, better off than the German peasantry. Very 
early in their history feudal serfdom had been abolished 
in the north of France, especially in Normandy ; while 
in most parts their services in labour had been long 
ago changed into fixed rents, paid most often in corn, 
wine, or fruits. But their young crops still suffered from 
but paying the lord's game. They still had tolls and 
rents f ees an( j heriots to pay, and forced labour to 

give on the roads. They still looked up to the feudal 
lord as to a master, and the lord down upon them as 
born for service. There was an impassable barrier of 
blood between the two classes. The Church added her 

, . , claims — her tithes, as in other countries, 

and tithes iiiirn 

and the endless fees and money payments, 
which made her so obnoxious. Bishops and abbots, 
in France as in Germany, had large estates as well as 
tithes, and so were landlords and princes as well as 
priests, drawing, Machiavelli says, two-fifths of the 
annual revenues of the kingdom into their ecclesiastical 
coffers. Lastly came the extra burden of the taille, 
growing with the military needs of kings who, having an 
, army, and not content with turning out the 

and taille. *f . . & 

English and conquering refractory barons, 
must needs lay claim to Milan and Naples, and invade 
Italy. 



ch. in. France. 45 

Here is a picture drawn by the peasants themselves of 
their hard lot, as they complained to the States General 
on the accession of Charles VIII., and laid their grie- 
vances before the new monarch, hoping for a remedy 
which never came. 

' During the past thirty-four years troops have been 
'ever passing through France and living on the poor 
' people. When the poor man has managed Their grie- 
'by the sale of the coat on his back, after varices. 
1 hard toil, to pay his taille, and hopes he may live out 
' the year on the little he has left, then come fresh troops 
' to his cottage, eating him up. In Normandy multi- 
' tudes have died of hunger. From want of beasts men 
' and women have to yoke themselves to the carts, and 
< others, fearing that if seen in the daytime they will be 
1 seized for not having paid their taille, are compelled to 
'work at nigh]:. The king should have pity on his poor 
' people, and relieve them from the said tailles and charges/ 

Alas ! Charles VIII., instead of listening to their com- 
plaints, took to invading Italy ! increasing their taille and 
spilling more of their blood. 

When to all this we add the consciousness that while 
they, the much-enduring peasantry, were bearing their 
increasing burthens, the noblesse were free from them, 
can we wonder if the peasantry should learn to hate as 
well as envy the nobles ? 

The middle class in order to escape the incidents of 
the rural taxation more and more left the rural districts to 
live in the towns. Not sharing the blood or The mIddle 
the freedom from taille of the nobles, there class leave 

. . . . . n . the country 

was no mixing or intermarrying with them. f or the 
They were of different castes. Neither did towns - 
the men of the towns sympathize with the peasantry. 
They had their taille to pay like the peasantry, but under 
their charters they enjoyed privileges which the peasant 



4.6 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

did not. They were merchants rather than manufacturers. 
Some linen manufactures were carried on in Brittany and 
Normandy, but mostly France was supplied with goods 
from the looms of Flanders in exchange for corn and wine. 
The towns were the markets in which the products of the 
peasant were exchanged, and the townsmen thus had the 
chance of throwing a part of their burdens on their rural 
customers in the shape of tolls and dues. While thus 
the noblesse grew prouder and poorer, and the peasantry 
were more and more burdened, the middle classes in the 
towns grew richer and more and more powerful. 

Hence the gulf between different classes in France was 
ever widening. The Crown was absolute and uncon- 
trolled by any parliament, the noblesse a privileged caste, 
the middle class settling in the towns, while the poor 
peasantry were left to bear their burdens alone in the 
Separation country. France had grown a big united 
of classes the country on the map, but looking within the 

main vice in . r -, • ■,-,■, ■, • i • r 

French nation, a state of things had begun which, if 

pohty. unreformed, was sure in the end to produce 

revolution, though it might not come yet. 

In the meantime the first false steps of the absolute 
kings of France were those attempts at aggrandizement 
Love of which led them to invade Italy and prove their 

tSLfvlce strength in a long rivalship with Spain. To 
inherpoiicy. gratify a royal lust for empire and military 
glory they were ready to sacrifice the welfare of the French 
people. 

{e) England. 

England had politically advanced further on the path 
of modern civilisation than any other country. 
The English The English people had long ago become 

already a compact nation, with a strong central 

formed. government, and with one law for all classes 

within it. 



ch. in. England. 47 

England had passed under the feudal system, and, like 
other countries, had her separate feudal elements, need- 
ing to be blended into one compact whole. But happily 
in England this work had in good measure been done. 

Her feudal nobles, especially since the wars of the 
Roses, had been thoroughly subdued under the central 
power. Early in her history the petty feudal' The no -biiity 
lords had sunk into commoners. Unlike the not a caste - 
noblesse of France, the nobility of England was not a 
separate caste. The younger sons of nobles became 
commoners, while their title to nobility, as well as their 
estates, went to the eldest sons only. 

England possessed a numerous and powerful middle 
class, and it was not, as in France, con- Middle 
fined to the towns. Landowners and yeomen classes. 
in the country belonged to it, as well as the citizens and 
merchants. f 

And whilst all classes, including the nobility, had been 
subjected to the central government, they had none 
of them been crushed and humbled. The < „ 

. The Crown 

Crown had not become absolute, as m France, also subject 
It, too, was subject to the laws of the land. t0 the laws - 

The central power, or government, consisted of — 
(1) The King, (2) the House of Lords, in which the 
nobility had seats ; and (3) the House of Commons, 
where the representatives of the free landholders, and of 
the free citizens or burgesses, sat side by side. The govern- 
No law could be passed without the con- StionaT" 
currence of the Crown and both Houses of monarchy. 
Parliament. And the laws so passed were binding alike 
on king, nobility, and commoners, i.e., on the whole na- 
tion. Nor could the Crown levy taxes without the consent 
of Parliament. The government of England was a con- 
stitutional monarchy, and had long been so. 

There was, however, still one class of people who were 
not altogether blended into the nation — the ecclesiastics 



48 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

or clergy. Bishops and abbots, because they were great 
landholders and peers of the realm, had seats in the 
The eccie- House of Lords, just as in Germany the ec- 
siastics. clesiastical princes were Electors as well as 

the lay princes. In this sense they were Englishmen. 
But the clergy in the main owed allegiance to Rome, 
Ecclesiastics an d in spite of the Constitutions of Clarendon, 
not alto- were still ruled by ecclesiastical law and eccle- 

gether Eng- . J ...... 

lishmen. siastical courts, and resented civil interfer- 

ence. So they w 7 ere subjects of the great Roman ec- 
clesiastical empire rather than of England. Their al- 
legiance was at least divided between the Pope and 
the king, and often they were really foreigners. The 
The Pope Pope at the same time drew large revenues from 
drew re- England as well as the king. The ecclesiastical 

venues from & » 

England. power was more under control, and had been 
for long more restrained by law in England than in most 
countries ; but still the fact was that Rome had ecclesiastical 
sway over England. And in England, as elsewhere, the 
clergy and monks had got a large part of the land into 
their hands — probably about one-third of the land of 
England belonged to them, as well as tithes from the whole. 

The fact that there was one law of the land made by 
King and Parliament, and ruling all classes in the realm 
Thepeasan- (except the clergy), had, more than anything 
try had got else, helped the peasantry to rise out of feudal 
feudal servi- servitude. There was no peasantry in Europe 
tude - (except the Swiss) which had already so com- 

pletely got out of it as the English. 

It early became the law of the land in England that 
the services of the peasant could not be increased by the 
lord. What they had been by long custom they must not 
exceed. Then, by the influence of commerce, money 
payments were early substituted for labour services. So 
that people became used to money rents for land and 



ch. in. England. 49 

money wages for labour. The population of England had 
increased very rapidly up to the fourteenth century. It 
was then nearly twice what it was afterwards, because 
the Black Death in 1349 swept away half of it in a few 
months. This of course made labour scarce. In spite 
of all that the lords could do, and in spite even of Acts 
of Parliament passed to prevent it, there was a great rise 
in wages. 

Under the feudal law the feudal tenants might not 
leave their land. But now more and more they went to 
the towns, where they could earn higher wages than by 
tilling the land. There was of course a struggle to prevent 
it, but aided by the towns, the process went on. The 
feudal lords tried to enforce the old services, which 
had become so much more valuable since the Black 
Death. The more they did, the more their tenants 
deserted the land and went to the towns. The peasantry 
kept up a kind' of strike, which came to a climax in the 
rebellion under Wat Tyler in 1381. They were so far 
successful that fixed money payments became general 
instead of services, and by the time of Henry VII. feudal 
servitude or villenage was at an end in England. 

Quite a new state of things had grown up. Owing to the 
growth of the woollen manufactures, and the demand for 
wool, sheep-farming had very much increased. The present 
Instead of a lot of little peasants' holdings, g£ d £j°° of 
the large farms of the wealthy sheep-owners santry. 
often covered the country side. The masses of the 
people in England were more and more becoming 
a free people working for wages, while such tenants as 
remained on the land paid fixed money rents instead of 
services, and instead of being tied to the land were ejected 
from their holdings if they could not pay their rents. No 
doubt the masses of the people in England had their 
hardships to endure. They had suffered during the civil 
E 



50 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

wars of the Roses from anarchy and lawlessness and 
the ravages of armies. Soldiers disbanded after foreign 
wars disturbed the country. Small tenants found it hard 
to compete with larger ones, and on failure to pay their 
rents lost their farms very often. The number of ejections 
from the land added of course to the idle vagrant popu- 
lation. Robbery was thereby increased, and as both 
Freedom did thieves and vagabonds were hang, some- 
not neces- times twenty might be seen hanging from a 
them 7 better single gibbet. All this showed that there were 
off - evils at work — many things needing reform 

—but the English peasantry had earned by their past 
They had no struggles this great advantage: instead of 
share in the being servile tenants of feudal lords, they 

government, _ , . , , , n - 

but there were free subjects, protected by the law of 
™e°ve h nt ,S the land, though freedom did not necessarily 
their getting make them better off, but often the contrary. 
They had indeed as yet no share in making the 
laws, but there was nothing in their blood or in the law 
of England to prevent their rising by industry and thrift 
into owners of land, and as such claiming a voice in the 
government of their country. 

Such was England when, after the wars of the Roses, 
Henry VII. conquered at the Battle of Bosworth, and 
ascended the throne in 1485. 

Henry VII. was born an orphan, a few months after 
the death of his father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Rich- 
mond. He was an exile in Brittany while 
the civil wars were raging in England. He 
was twenty-six when the young princes were murdered, 
and Richard III. usurped the throne. At once, under 
the advice of Morton, Bishop of Ely, an attempt was 
made to dethrone in his favour the tyrant 
and landed ' Richard III, He was only twenty-eight 
in Wales. w hen, after landing at Milford Haven, and 



ch„ in. England. 51 

' winning at the Battle of Bosworth, he was proclaimed 
king. His family (the Tudors) were Welsh, and so he 
had wisely landed in Wales. Belonging himself to the 
Lancastrian house, and in order to conciliate the Yorkists, 
he had taken an oath to marry, and afterwards married, 
Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., thereby in a 
way uniting the blood of the two rival factions. The throne 
He was received with acclamations in Lon- precarious. 
don, and ascended a precarious throne. It is well to 
note how precarious it was. The four previous kings had 
all been violently dethroned— Henry VI. imprisoned and 
murdered, Edward IV. deposed and exiled, Edward V. 
murdered, Richard III. slain in the Battle of Bosworth. 

Henry VII. himself was a usurper, and, though he 
was king by Act of Parliament, there were 0ther 
other claimants to the throne. Two of them, claimants, 
generally thought to be impostors, invaded England, and 
tried to seize upon his throne. 

The first of these, Lambert Simnel, called Lambert 
himself Edward Earl of Warwick, and was Simnel. 
supported by the Yorkist nobility, but defeated at the 
battle of Stoke in 1487. 

The other, Perkin Warbeck, professed to be the 
Duke of York, who with his brother, Edward V., was 
supposed to have been murdered by Richard Perkin War . 
III. He was supported by Edward IV.'s beck, 
sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, by the Kings of France 
and Scotland, who were continually plotting against 
Henry VI L, and every now and then, when it suited his 
purpose, by Ferdinand of Spain. Perkin Warbeck was 
taken prisoner in 1497, and beheaded in 1499. 
Henry VII.'s foreign policy was peace and 
alliance with Spain, We have seen that the foSSa " S , 
foreign policy of Spain was alliance with Eng- P° lic y- 
land against France. Henry VII. wanted peace. This 

E 2 



5 2 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

alone could give him a chance of establishing himself 
firmly on his precarious throne. To get peace he allied 
himself with Spain. While both were infants the Prince 
of Wales was betrothed to the Princess of Spain, Cathe- 
rine of Arragon. Ferdinand was a treacherous ally. He 
dragged Henry VII. into the war with France which 
ended in the annexation of Brittany to France. And when 
Marriages it suited his purpose he threatened to dethrone 
with Cather- Henry, and even offered Catherine of Arragon 
Arragon. to the King of Scotland. At length, as years 

passed, the marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine took 
place ; but Prince Arthur soon after died. Then came 
negotiations for Catherine's marriage with Prince Henry 
(Henry VIII.), and on the death of his queen Henry 
VII. offered to marry his late son's widow himself ! At 
length, in 1503, the contract for the marriage with the 
Prince Henry was signed, but as Henry was not yet of 
age it could be set aside if any other alliance suited "him 
better. 

It is well to mark how these royal marriages were 
merely a part of the foreign policy of princes, and that 
from the first there had been great lack of good faith as 
regards this marriage, on which so much of England's 
future history was to turn. 

Henry VII.'s domestic policy was in the main wise. 
tttt , King and usurper as he was, he yet took 

Henry VII. s . i . . ' , ' _ , 

domestic great pains to conform to the law of the 

pohcy. land. Instead of trying to make the crown 

absolute, he remembered he was a constitutional monarch, 
and could levy no taxes without consent of Parliament. 

Still, though a constitutional monarchy, the government 

of England in Tudor times was not conducted just as it is 

now. Parliament did not sit every year as it 

His position .. , . 

as regards does now. Nor were there as now a prime 
Parliament, minister and a cabinet of ministers represent- 



ch. in. England. 53 

ing the majority in Parliament, responsible to Parliament, 
remaining in office only so long as they can command a 
majority in Parliament, and giving place to another prime 
minister and cabinet as soon as they find themselves in a 
minority. The king had the reins of government much 
more in his own hands than the crown has now. He chose 
his own ministers, who were responsible to him alone. 
And as the regular annual revenues of the Crown were 
sufficient to pay for the ordinary expenses of government, 
and did not need voting by Parliament every year as they 
do now, it was only when he had a war on hand, or some- 
thing extraordinary happened needing fresh taxes or laws, 
that it was needful for a Tudor king to call a Parliament. 

The chief minister of Henry VII. was Cardinal 
Morton, a true Englishman, though an ecclesiastic. He 
was a man of large experience. He was in 
middle life when Henry was born. He was a S?^ 
privy councillor, and faithful adherent of Morton - 
Henry VI. Edward IV. had made him his Lord Chan- 
cellor, and his executor. Richard III. had thrown him 
into prison, but he had escaped in time to plan the enter- 
prise which proved successful at Bosworth Field, and to 
him Henry VII. owed his throne. 

Under the influence of Morton Henry VII. on the 
whole did what the weal of England required. 

With a strong hand he kept all classes subject to the 
laws of the land, quelled rebellion, and maintained 
internal peace and order. He was avaricious, ^ A 

, . 1 . , ' Order main- 

but even m his most hard and unjust tained. 
exactions he kept within the letter of the law. 

In order to keep the nobility in check he favoured the 
growth and power of the middle classes— Midd]e cU 
notably of the ' yeomen/ i.e. small landholders, favoured. 
and tenant farmers. 

Thus he did much to conciliate the English nation 



54 State of Christendom. PT . i. 

after the long civil wars. He also paved the way for 
Paved the *h e un i° n °f England and Scotland by the 
way for the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the King 
England and of Scots. Being himself a Welshman, he 
Scotland. reconciled the Welsh to English rule. After 
a struggle of 1,000 years they at length were satisfied 
with union with England. Under the Tudor dynasty 
they ceased to feel themselves a conquered 

Finally con- . , , , . . ,, . 

ciliated the people, and though retaining their separate 
Welsh. language, ceased to rebel from what they no 

longer considered a foreign yoke. 

To these claims of Henry VII. to English respect 
we must add that, though not sagacious enough to 
And began patronise Columbus, he did the next best 
cdomai ds thing in sending out afterwards Sebastian 
empire. Cabot to discover and claim for England a 

foothold across the ocean which proved the beginning of 
those extensions of England in America in which half the 
English people now dwell. Thus he was the founder of 
England's colonial empire. 

Of his later years we shall have to speak again. In 
the meantime it may help to fix some of these facts on 
our minds if we dwell a moment on his tomb. 

' His corpse' (says the chronicler) 'was conveyed with 
( funeral pomp to Westminster, and there buried by the 
The tomb of ' good queen, his wife, in a sumptuous and 
Henry vii. ' solemn chapel, which he had not long 
' before caused to be -builded.' He was buried in a 
vault just big enough for himself and his queen, under 
the pavement in the centre of that beautiful chapel 
which still bears his name, and in which, round this 
central tomb, so many Tudor and Stuart princes were 
afterwards laid. When Henry VI I. 's vault was opened in 
1 869 there were found to be three coffins instead of two ! 
The third was discovered to be that of James I. To 



ch. iv. The Necessity for Reform. 5 5 

make room for it the wood had been stripped off the 
other two, leaving the inner lead coffins bare. The 
workmen engaged in this strange work were found to 
have quaintly scratched their names on the lead, with the 
date 1625. 

In that tomb of Henry VII. lie, therefore, not only 
the heirs of the two English contending factions of York 
and Lancaster, and of the traditions of Wales, but also the 
Scotch monarch who, thanks to the policy of his great- 
great-grandfather, Henry VII., ascended the English 
throne and became the first king of Great Britain. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEED OF REFORM AND DANGER OF REVOLUTION, 

(a) The Necessity for Reform. 

Now, after this review of the state of Christendom, it 
will be easy to see in what points it fell short of the 
demands of modern civilisation and wherein therefore 
reform was needful. 

We said that the first point towards which modern 
civilisation specially tended was this, viz., the formation 
of compact nations living peaceably side by side, respect- 
ing one another's rights and freedom. 

We have seen that the modern nations were fast 
forming themselves — that England, France, i ta iyand 
and Spain were already formed, but that Italy Germany 
and Germany were lagging far behind in this united 
matter. ' nations - 



56 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

But none of the nations were living peaceably side by 
side, and respecting one another's rights. They were at 
The lack of constant war, sometimes under the leadership 

P n ea e ce?nd nal ° f the ^°P e > like a baild ° f robberS > Setting 

justice. upon Venice, or Naples, or Milan ; then 

quarrelling amongst themselves, and forming fresh leagues 
to drive one another out. Their foreign policy was aggres- 
sive and wofully wanting in good faith. This want c« 
public peace and international morality was a crying evil. 
It disturbed commerce, and its worst result was that it 
inflicted terrible hardships on the masses of the people. 
The voice of the French peasantry was clear upon this 
point. Here then was need for reform. 

The second great point aimed at by modern civilisa- 
tion was, that (looking within each nation) all classes of 
the people were to be alike citizens, for whose common 
weal the nation was to be governed, and who were 
ultimately to govern themselves. 

Not only as yet had the masses of the people no share 
in the government of the nations of which they formed so 
large a part, but also they were very far from being re- 
garded as free citizens, except in England, where in 
theory they were so, though perhaps not much so in prac- 
The serfdom t ^ ce - In Germany especially, the peasantry 
of the Ger- we re still in feudal serfdom, and feeling their 
Siriu-yTtiil thraldom more keenly than ever. Here, 
continued. again, was a necessity for reform. 

We have already seen that there was a necessity for 
reform in that ecclesiastical system of Rome 
siastical and which opposed the free growth of the modern 
Systems 10 nations, and in the scholastic system so 
needed intimately connected with it, which was op- 

posed to free thought, science, and true 
religion, and prevented the diffusion of the benefits of 
knowledge and education among the masses of the people. 



ch. iv. The Necessity for Reform. 57 

Now the question for the new era was, whether the 
onward course of modern civilisation was to 
be by a gradual timely reform in these things, tives, reform 
or whether, reform being refused or thwarted, ^,n evolu " 
it was to be by revolution. 

Recognising the necessity there was for reform, we 
have now to see the danger there was of revolution ; how 
far and wide, in fact, the train was already laid, waiting 
only for the match to explode it. 



(b) The Train laid for Revolution. 

It will not seem strange, (1), that it was among the 
oppressed peasantry of Germany that the The train 
train was most effectually laid for revolution ; was laid 
or, (2), that when attempts had been made at Smtn e 
revolution, they were aimed at the redress of P eas < mtr y- 
both religious and political grievances. 

The ecclesiastical grievances of the peasantry were 
as practical and real as those involved in feudal serfdom. 
The peasant's bondage to the priests and Their eccle _ 
monks was often even harder than the bond- siastical as 
age to his feudal lords. It was not only feudal 5 
that he had tithes to pay, but after paying s nevances - 
tithes, he still had to pay for everything he got from 
priests and church. That religion which should have 
been his help and comfort was become a system of 
extortion and fraud. 

These are the words of a contemporary writer (Juan 
de Valdez, the brother of the secretary of the Emperor 
Charles V.), himself a Catholic, and well 
acquainted with the condition of things in Ger- ra?J- te^° 
many • ' I see that we can scarcely get anything timon y- 
1 from Christ's ministers but for money; at baptism money, 
* at bishoping money, at marriage money, for confession 



58 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

' money — no, not extreme unction without money ! They 
' will ring no bells without money, no burial in the church 
'without money ; so that it seemeth that Paradise is shut 
' up from them that have no money. The rich is buried in 
' the church, the poor in the churchyard. The rich man 
1 may marry with his nearest kin, but the poor not so, 
( albeit he be ready to die for love of her. The rich may 
'eat flesh in Lent but the poor may not, albeit fish 
1 perhaps be much dearer. The rich man may readily get 
' large indulgences, but the poor none, because he wanteth 
' money to pay for them.' 

We must remember, too, how galling to the peasant 
was the payment of the large and small tithes. These 
words were written in England, but they will serve for all 
Europe. 

1 They have their tenth part of all the corn, meadows, 
1 pasture, grass, wood, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, geese, and 
Another ' chickens. Over and besides the tenth part of 

testimony. < every servant's wages, wool, milk, honey, wax, 
' cheese, and butter ; yea, and they look so narrowly after 
1 their profits that the poor wife must be countable to them 
' for every tenth egg, or else she getteth not her rights at 
c Easter, and shall be taken as a heretic' 

Can we wonder that the peasants should rebel against 
this ? and that in Germany, where both feudal and eccle- 
siastical oppression was so galling, they should rebel 
against both, and mix the two together in their minds, 
demanding in one breath both religious and political 
freedom ? Surely there was reason in it. 

As early as the fourteenth century the Swiss peasants 
in the Forest Cantons had rebelled and thrown off the 
Successful yoke of their Austrian feudal lords, and when 
the e s^ss° f tne l atter joined in a common cause against 
1315, them, the Swiss were victorious in the battle 

of Morgarten, 13 15. The Swiss had formerly belonged 



ch. iv. The train laid for Revolution. 59 

to the German Empire, and had the Empire done 
justice between them and their lords they would have 
been glad enough to remain free- peasants of the Empire ; 
but as the Empire helped their lords instead of them, 
they threw off the yoke of the Empire. They were 
soon joined by other neighbouring cantons, and their 
flag, with its white cross on a red ground, became the 
flag of a new nation, the Swiss confederacy, with its 
motto e Each for all, and all for each ' — a nation of free 
peasants, letting out their sons as soldiers to fight for pay, 
and, alas, not always on the side of freedom ! 

Between 1424 and 147 1 the peasants of the Rhastian 
Alps did the same thing. Oppressed and insulted by their 
lords they burned their castles and threw off an dthepea- 
their yoke, and thus was formed the Grau- GraubuncT 
bund, in imitation of the Swiss confederacy, 1441-71- 
but separate from it. 

Referring to the map ' Serfdom and Rebellions against 
it* we mark these two Swiss republics on it as the region 
where rebellion had met with success. It was no doubt 
their mountains which helped the Swiss peasants to suc- 
cess and independence. Their battles were little Mara- 
thons. At Morgarten 1,300 Swiss won the day against 
10,000 Austrian troops. Their Alps were their protection. 

We mark next the region where the rebellion against 
Rome and the Empire, which followed in Bohemia upon 
the preaching of Wiclif and martyrdom of 
Huss, had been, after a long reign of terror, JJSbdlEi 
and the Hussite wars (1415-1436), quelled in oftheLoi- 
blood. Hussite doctrines were indeed still Hussite 
held by the people, and by the treaty of ^J I * I5_ 
Basle in some sense tolerated ; but this, never- 
theless, was the region where rebellion, springing out of 
the last era of light and progress, had been crushed to rise 
no more. 



60 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

Now we have got to mark where, in connexion with 
the new era, there were signs, as we have said, that a 
train was laid for a coming revolution. 

The John the Baptist of the movement was Hans Bo* 
heijn, a drummer, who had appeared in 1476 in Franconia, 
Threats of on the Tauber, a branch of the Maine. He 
Franconia. in P r °f esse d to be a prophet, to have had visions 
1476. of the Virgin Mary, and to be sent by her to 

proclaim that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that 
the yoke of bondage to lords spiritual and temporal was 
coming to an end, that under the new kingdom there 
were to be no taxes, tithes, or dues ; all were to be 
brethren, and woods, and waters, and pastures were to be 
free to all men. A crowd of 40,000 pilgrims flocked to 
hear the prophet of the Tauber till the Bishops of Wiirz- 
burg and Maintz interfered, dispersed the crowd and 
burned the prophet. He was but a sign of the times — a 
voice crying in the wilderness ! But his cry was one which 
found a response in the hearts of the peasantry — freedom 
from the yoke of their feudal and spiritual lords, and the 
restoration of those rights which in ancient days had 
belonged to the community. This was the cry of the 
peasantry for many generations to come. 

The next was a much more formidable movement, 
The 'Bund- Vlz "> tnat name d from the banner borne by the 
schuh' peasantry, the Bundschuh, or peasant's clog. 

While the peasants in the Rhsetian Alps were gradually 
throwing off the yoke of the nobles and forming the 
in Kempten Graubund, a struggle was going on between 
!49 2 - the neighbouring peasantry of Kempten (to 

the east of Lake Constance) and their feudal lord, the 
Abbot of Kempten. It began in 1423, and came to an 
open rebellion in 1492. It was a rebellion against new 
demands not sanctioned by ancient custom, and though 
it was crushed, and ended in little good to the peasantry 



ch. iv. The train laid for Revolution. 61 

(many of whom fled into Switzerland), yet it is worthy 
of note because in it for the first time appears the banner 
of the Bundschuh. 

The next rising was in Elsass (Alsace), in 1493, the 
peasants finding allies in the burghers of the towns 
along the Rhine, who had their own grie- In Ei sass 
vances. The Bundschuh was again their !493- 
banner, and it was to Switzerland that their anxious eyes 
were turned for help. This movement also was prema- 
turely discovered and put down. 

Then, in 1501, other peasants, close neighbours to 
those of Kempten, caught the infection, and in 1502, 
again in Elsass, but this time further north, in -^ ot ^ again 
the region about Speyer and the Neckar, in 1501-2. 
lower down the Rhine, nearer Franconia, the Bund- 
schuh was raised again. It numbered on its recruit 
rolls many thousands of peasants from the country round, 
along the Neckar and the Rhine. The wild notion was 
to rise in arms, to make themselves free, like the Swiss, 
by the sword, to acknowledge no superior but the Em- 
peror, and all Germany was to join the League. They 
were to pay no taxes or dues, and commons, forests, and 
rivers were to be free to all. Here again they mixed up 
religion with their demands, and ' Only what is just be- 
fore God' was the motto on the banner of the Bundschuh. 
They, too, were betrayed, and in savage triumph the Em- 
peror Maximilian ordered their property to be confiscated, 
their wives and children to be banished, and themselves 
to be quartered alive. It would have been suicide on the 
part of the nobles to fulfil orders so cruel on their own 
tenants. They would have emptied their estates of 
peasants, and so have lost their services, for the con- 
spiracy was widely spread. Few, therefore, really fell 
victims to this cruel order of the Emperor. The ring- 
leaders dispersed, fleeing some into Switzerland and some 



st 



62 State of Christendom. pt. i. 

into the Black Forest. For ten years now there was 
silence. The Bundschuh banner was furled, but only for 
a while. 

In 1 5 12 and 15 13, on the east side of the Rhine, in 
the Black Forest and the neighbouring districts of Wiir- 
Aboutthe temberg, the movement was again on foot 
Black Forest on a still larger scale. It had found a leader 
unde^joss in Joss Fritz. A soldier, with commanding 
Fritz. presence, and great natural eloquence, used 

to battle, hardship, and above all, patience, he bided his 
time. He was one of the fugitives who had escaped being 
' quartered.' He hid himself for years in places where 
he was unknown, but never despaired. At length, in 
1 51 2 he returned to his own land, settled near Freiburg, 
and began to draw together again the broken threads of 
the Peasants' league. He got himself appointed forester 
under a neighbouring lord, talked to the peasants in the 
fields, or at inns and fairs, and held secret meetings 
at a lonely place among the forests in the dusk of evening. 
There he talked of the peasants' burdens, of the wealth of 
their ecclesiastical oppressors, of the injustice of their 
blood being spilled in the quarrels of lords and princes, 
how they were robbed of the wild game of the forest, 
and the fish in the rivers, which in the sight of God were 
free, like the air and the sun, to all men, how they ought 
to have no masters but God, the Pope, and the Emperor. 
Lastly, he talked to them of the Bimdschuh. They went 
to consult their priest, but Joss had talked over the 
priest to his side, and he r encouraged the movement. 
Then they framed their articles, and Joss defended them 
out of the Bible. They were first to seek the sanction 
and aid of the Emperor, and if he refused to help them 
then they would turn to. the Swiss. 

There was a company of licensed beggars who tramped 
about the country with their wallets, begging alms wherever 



ch. iv. The train laid for Revolution. 63 

they went — a sort of guild, with elected captains. This 
guild Joss took into his confidence. They were his spies, 
and through them he knew what watches were kept at 
city gates, and through them he kept the various ends of 
the conspiracy going. His plans were now all laid. He 
wanted nothing but the Bundschuh banner. He got some 
silk and made a banner — blue, with a white cross upon it. 
The white cross was the Swiss emblem. Some of his 
followers would have preferred the eagle of the Empire. 
But how was the Bwidschuh to he added ? What painter 
could be found who would keep the secret ? Twice he 
tried and was disappointed, and all but betrayed. At 
length, far away on the banks of the Neckar, he found a 
painter, who painted upon it the Virgin Mary and St. 
John, the Pope and the Emperor, a peasant kneeling 
before the cross, a Bundschuh, and under it the motto 
' O Lord, help the righteous.' He returned with it under 
his clothes, but ere he reached home the secret was out. 
Again the League was betrayed. A few days more and 
the banner would have been unfurled. Thousands of 
peasants were ready to march, but now all was over, the 
whole thing was out, and Joss Fritz, with the banner 
under his clothes, had to fly for his life to Switzerland. 
Everything was lost but his own resolution. Those 
conspirators who were seized were put to torture, hung, 
beheaded, and some of them quartered alive. 

But Joss Fritz was not disheartened. He returned 
after a while to the Black Forest, went about his secret 
errands, and again bided his time. 

In 1 5 14 the peasantry of the Duke Ulrich of Wiirtem- 
berg rose to resist the tyranny of their lord, who had ground 
them down with taxes to pay for his reckless In x - m 
luxury and expensive court. The same year, Wurtemberg 
in the valleys of the Austrian Alps, in Carin- Austrian 
thia, Styria, and Carniola (Crain), similar Alps - 



64 State of Christendom. PT . 1. 

risings of the peasantry took place, all of them ending in 
the triumph of the nobles. 

To defend themselves against such risings a league 
had been formed among the nobles of the whole district to 
The Swabian the north of Switzerland, called the Swabian 
against the ^ a g ue i an d a proclamation was issued that 
peasants. < Since in the land of Swabia, and all over the 

' Empire, among the vassals and poor people disturb- 
' ances and insurrections are taking place, with setting 
' up of the standard of the Bundschuh and other ensigns 
1 against the authority of their natural lords and rulers, 
1 with a view to the destruction of the nobles and all 
' honourable persons, the noble and knightly orders have 
' therefore agreed, whatever shall happen, to support each 
' other against every such attempt on the part of the 
' common man.' 

This brings forcibly into view again the fatal vice in 

the polity of feudal Germany — want of the consolidation 

of the German people into a compact nation. 

Far and _ . , r ^ 

wide the For here were the peasantry of Germany 

iaid n for aS appealing helplessly to some higher power to 
future revo- protect them from the oppression of their 
feudal lords, conspiring for a general rebellion 
for lack of it, and debating whether on the flag of the 
Bundschuh they should paint the eagle of the Empire or 
the white cross of the Swiss republic. Here on the 
other hand were the nobles and knightly orders con- 
spiring by the sheer force of their combined swords to 
crush these ' attempts on the part of the common man.' 
The crying need of both was for a German nation — a 
commonwealth — with a strong central power or govern- 
ment to hold the sword of justice between them, settling 
their disputes by the law of the land for their common 
weal. For lack of this there was rebellion and bloodshed. 
These risings of the peasantry were crushed for a while, 



ch. iv. The train laid for Revolution. 65 

but Joss Fritz was only biding his time, and meanwhile 
let us bear in mind where, how far and wide over Central 
Europe, the train was laid, waiting only for the match to 
ignite it. 

It is well to look once more on the map of serfdom, 
to fix these revolutionary localities in our mind, and 
before we pass away from them to mark how they lie, 
not in the region of darkest shadow, where serfdom was 
most complete— where a conquered Slavonian peasantry 
were in bondage too complete for rebellion — nor in the 
region of the crushed Hussite rebellions ; but in those 
regions next to the countries where serfdom had obtained 
least hold, and had passed away ; above all, 
in those mountain regions where the traditions ! T K e train 

y • — _ J.31Q not 

01 ancient freedom had lived the longest, where serf- 
where the spirit of the people was least sub- h™S, ^ 
dued, and where the close neighbourhood of ]? utwher ' e 

... ■ ri1 . , „ & freedom was 

their tellow mountaineers of Switzerland kept nearest in 
an example of successful rebellion ever before Slght ' 
their eyes. We may see in this way most clearly how 
these peasants' rebellions were not isolated phenomena, 
but parts of a great onward movement beginning centuries 
back, which already had swept over England and France, 
and freed the peasants there, and now, in this era, had 
Germany to grapple with. Whether it was destined to be 
at once successful or not we shall see in this history, but 
we may be sure it was destined to conquer some 'day, 
because we cannot fail to recognize in it one of the waves 
of the advancing tide of modern civilisation. 



66 The Protestant Revolution. 



PART II. 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING AND REFORM AT FLORENCE. 

(a) The Revivers of Learning at Florence. 

The story we have now to tell begins at Florence. 
Florence, as we have already noted, was a republic, but 
The Re- differing from other Italian republics in this : 

public of that while in others the nobles held power, 

here in Florence, for some generations, the 
nobles had been dethroned. The people had got the rule 
into their own hands ; and so far had they carried their 
distrust of the nobles, that no noble could hold office 
in the city unless he first enrolled himself as a simple 
citizen. Florence had long been a great commercial city, 
and the public spirit of her citizens had helped to make 
her prosperous. Never had she been more prosperous 
than in the early days of her democracy. But every now 
and then there were troubled times ; and in such times, 
more than once or twice, a dictator had been chosen. 
Power In the Sometimes even a foreign prince had been 
hands of the made dictator for a stated number of years. 

At length power had fallen into the hands of 
the wealthier families of citizens, and the chief of these 
was the family of the Medici. 



ch. i. Revival and Reform at Florence. 67 

Cosmo de' Medici was for many years dictator. His 
great wealth, gained by commerce, placed him in the 
position of a merchant prince. His virtues, 
and patronage of learned men and the arts, 1389-1464- 
made him popular; and his popularity paved the way 
for the proud position held by his grandson, ' Lorenzo 
the Magnificent.' 

Lorenzo de' Medici (of whose times we are to speak) 
had followed in Cosmo's footsteps, and had got into his 
single hand the reins of the state. He had Lor 
set aside the double council of elected citizens, Medid? 
and now ruled through a council of seventy I448_I4 9 2 
men chosen by himself. His court was the most brilliant 
and polished of his time, but in the background of his 
magnificence there was always this dark shadow— he 
held his high place at the expense of the liberties of the 
people of Florence. 

There was, however, much in his rule to natter the 
pride of the Florentines. 

Under the Medici, Florence had become the ' Modern 
Athens.' Their genius and wealth had filled it with 
pictures and statues, and made it the home of Florence the 
artists and sculptors. At this very moment, in Modem 6 
Lorenzo's palace and under his patronage, was Athens ' 
young Michael Angelo, ere long to be the greatest sculptor 
and one of the greatest painters of Italy. Learning also, 
as well as art, had found a home at Florence. Michael 
The taking of Constantinople by the Turks Angela 
having driven learned men into Italy, here at Flo- 
rence, and elsewhere in Italy, the philosophy of Plato 
was taught by men whose native tongue was Greek. 
Cosmo de' Medici. had founded the 'Platonic 
Academy] and Ficino, who was now at the Sadem^ 
head of it, had been trained up under his ^ ■ 
patronage. Flcmo ' 



6S The Protestant Revolution. PT . ir. 

Political (Poliziano), the most brilliant and polished 
Latin poet of the day, was always at the palace, directing-' 
the studies of Lorenzo's children, and ex- 
1454-1494 ; changing Greek epigrams with learned ladies 
den a P Miran- of ^ he court - To tnis galaxy of distinguished 
dola, men had recently been added the beautiful 

young prince, Pico delta Mirandola, regarded 
as the greatest linguist and most precocious genius of 
the age. At twenty-three he had challenged all the 
learned men of Europe to dispute with him at Rome ; 
and some of the opinions he advanced being charged 
with heresy, he had taken refuge at the court of Lorenzo, 
who gave him a villa near his own and Politian's, on the 
slope of the mountain overlooking the rich valley of the 
Arno and the domes and towers of Florence. What 
these three friends — Ficino the Platonist, Politian the 
poet, and Pico, their young and brilliant companion — 
were to each other, let this little letter picture to us. 

Politian writes to Ficino, and asks him to come. 

'My little villa is very secluded, it being embosomed among 
woods, but in some directions it may be said to overlook all 
Florence. Here Pico often steals in upon me unexpectedly from 
his grove of oaks, and draws me away with him from my hiding- 
place to partake of one of his pleasant suppers — temperate, as you 
know well, and brief, but always seasoned with delightful talk and 
wit. You will, perhaps, like better to come to me, where your fare 
will not be worse and your wine better— for in that I may venture 
to vie even with Pico.' 

Add to this picture the brilliance of Lorenzo's court, 
and what a fascinating picture it is ! 

This little knot of men at Florence, and others in 
Italy, were at work at what is called the 'Revival of 
The Revival Learning.' . These revivers of learning are 
of Learning, often spoken of as 'the Humanists? They 
were digging up again and publishing, by means of the 
printing-press, the works of the old Greek and Latin 



ch. i. Revival and Reform at Florence. 69 

writers, and they found in them something to their taste 
much more true and pure than the literature of the middle 
ages. After reading the pure Latin of the classical 
writers they were disgusted with the bad Latin of the 
monks : after studying Plato they were disgusted with 
scholastic philosophy. Such was the rottenness of Rome 
that they found in the high aspirations of Plato after 
spiritual truth and immortality a religion which seemed 
to them pUrer than the grotesque form of semi-pagan 
Christianity which Rome held out to them, tendencies 
They could flatter the profligate Pope as all revival of 
but divine in such words as ' Sing unto Sixtus learmn s- 
a new song/ but in their hearts some of them scoffed, and 
doubted whether Christianity be true and whether there 
be a life after death for mankind. 



(b) The great Florentine Reformer, Girolamo 
Savonarola (1486-1498). 

These were the revivers of learning. But suddenly 
there arose amongst them quite another kind of man— a 
religious Reformer. He came like a shell in Girolamo 
the midst of tinder, and it burst in the midst Savonarola, 
of the Platonic Academy. The name of this I452 I49 ' 
Florentine Reformer was Girolamo Savonarola. He too 
was a learned man, meant by his father to be a doctor, 
but being of a religious turn of mind he had chosen 
to become a monk. Finding from study of the Scriptures 
how much both the Church and the world Becomesa 
needed reform, he became a Reformer. In religious 
i486 he commenced preaching against the 
vices of popes, cardinals, priests and monks, the 
tyranny of princes, and the bad morals of the people, 
calling loudly for repentance and reformation. In 1487 
he preached at Reggio. There young Pico heard him, 



JO The Protestant Revolution. PT . n. 

and, taken by his eloquence, invited him to Florence. 
In 1490 he came to the convent of St. Mark, which was 
under the patronage of the Medici. Crowds came to hear 
him ; shopkeepers shut up their shops while he was 
Made Prior preaching. He became the idol of the people, 
at lio- Mark In U91 he was made Prior of San Marco, 
rence. anc [ w hen asked to do customary homage to- 

the patron for this high appointment he refused, saying 
1 he owed it to God, and not to Lorenzo de' Medici ! ' 

Innocent VIII. had now succeeded Sixtus IV. as 
Pope, and his natural son had married Lorenzo's daughter. 
The Pope in return had made Lorenzo's son John (after- 
wards Leo X.), a boy of thirteen, a cardinal ! "When 
Savonarola thundered against ecclesiastical scandals and 
the vices of the Pope, Lorenzo naturally did not like it. 
He sent messages to the preacher, exhorting him to use 
discretion. ' Entreat him,' replied the Reformer, ' in my 
name, to repent of his errors, for calamities from on high 
impend over him and his family.' The bold Reformer 
went on with his preaching, denouncing judgments upon 
Stirs up In Italy and Rome. A marked impression was 
the people soon visible in the morals of the people of 
reforlnand Florence. More and more he became their 
freedom. natural leader. Lorenzo tried to keep him- 

self popular by fetes and magnificent festivals. But gra- 
dually influential citizens, who still longed for the old 
republic and ancient liberty, attached themselves to 
Death of Savonarola. In 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici died. 

Lorenzo and The Reformer had been sent for, and was with 
him at his death. It was rumoured that he demanded 
of the dying man, as a condition of absolution, that he 
innocent should restore to Florence her ancient liber- 

viii. ties. This year Innocent VIII. too died ; 

and in 1493 the wicked reign of Alexander VI. and 
his son Caesar Borgia began. While they were plotting 



ch. i. Revival and Reform at Florence. J I 

to bring over Charles VIII. of France to scourge Italy, 
Savonarola mixed up with his denunciations against the 
evils of the times prophecies of impending woes upon 
Florence. Then came the armies of France ; The Frencll 
friendly relations between the French and the ^askm 

■ i i • r -i - -hjt j- • i The Medici 

Florentines ; the expulsion of the Medici, by expelled. 
their aid, from Florence ; the formation of a J P u b i; c 
republic, under the advice of Savonarola. He restored, 
declined to hold any office, but his spirit ruled supreme. 
Convents were reformed, and the study of the Bible in 
the original language made a part of the duty Savonarola's 
of the monks. Schools for the education of reforms. 
the children of the people were founded ; and Savona- 
rola went on with his preaching, denouncing the wicked- 
ness of the Church and demanding reform. 

In 1495 Pope Alexander VI. thought it was time to 
stop so dangerous a preacher. He cited him to Rome, 
but the people would not let him go. He offered to 
make him a cardinal as the price of his loyalty to Rome, 
but he publicly replied that the only red hat to which 
he aspired was one red in the blood of his own mar- 
tyrdom. 

Had Savonarola died in 1495 his name would have 
gone down to posterity as that of a reformer singularly 
zealous, noble, patriotic, judicious, and practical in his 
aims and conduct. But men are not per- He becomes 
feet. The zealous brain is apt to take fire, fanatical. 
and enthusiasm is apt to become fanatical. So it 
was with Savonarola. Both he and the people gave 
way to excitement. When the time of Carnival came, 
they dragged their trinkets, pictures, immoral books, 
vanities of all kinds, into the public square, and made a 
great bonfire of them. The excitement of the people 
reacted on the prophet who had raised it. In his later 
years (he lived only to the age of forty-seven), he pro- 



J2 The Protestant Revolution. p T . n. 

phesied more wildly than ever, thought he saw visions, 
and did fanatical things which marked a brain fevered 
and unbalanced. Be it so ; we are not therefore to 
forget to pay homage to the man who, even in these later 
years, was bold enough to put the Borgian Pope to well- 
merited shame, and to denounce his vices, regardless 
alike of his bribes or his threats. That the Pope was 
powerful enough at length to put him to silence by 
imprisonment, to make him confess his heresies by 
torture, and on his return to them when the torture was 
removed, to silence him for ever by a cruel death, did 
but cast the halo of martyrdom around his heroism and 
is mar- make his name immortal. He was strangled 

tyred by and burned at Florence by order of the Pope 

Pope Alex- in 1 498 — by order of that Pope who had him- 
anderVi. se jf comm itted murder and sacrilege and 
unheard-of crimes, and who five years after died of the 
poison prepared as it was said for another ! 



{c) Savonarola! s Influence on the Revivers of Lear7ii?ig. 

Lorenzo had died in 1492, and Savonarola, as we 
have said, was present at his death-bed. Pico, who 
had invited him to Florence, became a devout dis- 
His influence ciple of Savonarola, and after three years of 
PoHtian °and P ure anc * childlike piety, remarkably free from 
Ficino. fanaticism, died in 1495. Just as Charles 

■VIII. was entering Florence, Pico was buried • in the 
robes of Savonarola's order and in the church of St. 
Mark. Politian died in the same year ; he, too, desired 
to be buried in the robes of Savonarola's order. Ficino 
was carried away by the preaching of the Reformer for a 
while, but was disgusted with the fanaticism of his later 
years. He died a Platonist, hardly sure whether Chris- 
tianity be true or not, and this characteristic story is told 



ch. i. Revival and Reform at Florence. j^ 

about his death. He and a friend made a solemn bargain 
with each other that whichever died first should if possible 
appear to the other and tell him whether indeed there be 
a life after death. Ficino died first, and is said to have 
appeared to his friend exclaiming, < Oh, Michael, Michael, 
it is all true.' Whether the story be true or not, it shows 
exactly the state of mind the Neo-Platonist philosophers 
were in. 

(d) Niccolo Machiavelli. 

For some time after Savonarola's death Florence was 
governed by a Council of Ten, by whom was chosen as 
Secretary of State one of the most remark- 
able men of the time, Niccolo Machiavelli, Siavdii,^" 
the historian from whose writings we have 1 4 6 9- I S27- 
several times quoted. He was, perhaps, the keenest 
diplomatist that ever lived. Schooled in the lying politics 
of Italy, while Caesar Borgia and Alexander VI. were 
plotting and counter-plotting with all the States of Italy 
and Europe, he conducted the foreign diplomacy of the 
Republic of Florence till 15 12, when under Julius II. 
the French were driven out of Italy and the sons of 
Lorenzo de' Medici re-established in power. The Flo- 
rentines then lost their freedom of self-government 
again, and Machiavelli found himself an exile. In the 
retirement of a hidden country life he wrote his great 
work, 'The Prince.' Its object was to win « The 
a way back for its author to political life Prince.' 
by convincing the Medici that though he had served 
under their enemies, he could do them service if they 
employed him. It answered its purpose. Written in a 
• wicked, lying age, ' The Prince ' reflected its vices. Its 
author made no pretence of a higher virtue than Borgias 
and Medici would appreciate. He did not scruple to 
.advocate lying whenever it would pay ; force and fraud 



74 The Protestant Revolution. pt. t& 

whenever they would succeed ; tyranny, if needful to keep 
a tyrant on his throne ; murder and bloodshed as means 
of obtaining an end. This was what professedly Chris- 
tian popes had been doing of late. Machiavelli by putting 
these maxims into a scientific form in ' The Prince ' did 
but give them a sort of personality. He became, as it 
were, the demon of politics, and the unchristian policy 
of the times became known to after ages as ' Machia- 
vellian.' 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OXFORD REFORMERS. 



(a) The Spirit of Revival of Learning and Reform is 
carried fi'om Italy to Oxford (148 5- 1496). 

There were, as we have seen, two distinct movements 

at Florence in favour (1) of the Revival of Learning, 

. . . and (2) of Religious Reform. The distinction 

Distinction , -, , • , -, 

and con- and also the connexion between these move- 

?ween n Re- ments must be marked with care. 
vivai of The revival of the old classical Latin and 

Sgic-us*" Greek authors, by making men prefer Plato 
reform. tQ t k e schoolmen dealt a blow at the scho- 

lastic system, and even tended towards a rejection of 
Christianity. 

The spirit of religious reform was, on the other hand, 
a revival of earnest Christian feeling against the scandals 
of the Church and the irreligion of the age. It was in 
some sense caused by the revival of learning, for amongst 
the ancient literature which was revived were the Scrip- 



ch. ii. 1 he Oxford Reformers. 75 

tures and the works of the early Church fathers ; and 
the study of these in their original languages . , 

, , •-, , , r r Both against 

opened mens minds to the need of reform, the Schoias- 
It also set them against the scholastic theo- tlcs y stem - 
logy, and so it came to pass that the spirit of religious 
reform in its turn dealt a blow against the scholastic 
system. 

When the spirit which sought the revival of learning 
joined itself with that of religious reform, it produced 
reformers who aimed at freeing men's minds from the 
bonds of the scholastic system, at setting up Christ and 
his apostles instead of the schoolmen as the exponents 
of what Christianity really is, and lastly at making real 
Christianity and its golden rule the guide for men and 
nations, and so the basis of the civilisation of the future. 

So to some extent it had been in Italy. The revival 
of learning had produced, not only the Platonic Academy, 
but also the great Florentine Reformer ; and Savonarola, 
with his fiery religious zeal, had been more than a match 
for the pagan tendencies of the Platonic Academy. Pico 
especially, and in part Ficino, had united religious feel- 
ings with a love of the Platonic philosophy. Savonarola 
himself had united a love of letters and zeal for education 

with his spirit of religious reform. But the 

„, , . , The move- 

movement at Florence was now thoroughly ment crushed 

crushed. We must look elsewhere for its at Florence - 

further development till it becomes a power all over 

Europe. 

As in the fourteenth century the movement begun by 
Wiclif in England was carried into Bohemia by the inter- 
change of students between the Universities Revivers at 
of Oxford and Prague, so this movement, ° xford - 
begun in Italy, was soon carried by students from Flo- 
rence to Oxford, and from thence it took a fresh start. 

During the lifetime of Lorenzo de' Medici several 



j6 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii, 

Oxford students, amongst whom were Grocyu and 
Linacre. went to complete their studies in 

:Grocyn and ' . , - ■ 

Linacre go Italy. Linacre was made tutor or fellow- 
ieturnto and student of Lorenzo's own children (one of 
Oxford. whom was afterwards Pope Leo X.)- They 

returned to Oxford to revive there the study of the Greek 
language and literature. Linacre afterwards became tutor 
to Arthur Prince of Wales, and physician to Henry VII. 
Another Oxford student — John Colet — went to Italy 
after Lorenzo's death and the French invasion of Italy, 
and while Savonarola was virtually head of the 
doe? the kt Republic at Florence, also while the scandals 
same. of Rome's worst Pope, Alexander VI., and 

Colet unites ~, _-, . , , TT 

the spirit of Caesar Borgia, were m everyone s mouth. He 
iearnin W and cau g nt the spirit, not only of the revival of 
religious re- learning, but also of religious reform, and, 
combining the two, became on his return to 
Oxford the beginner of a movement at Oxford which was 
to influence Europe. 

(b) John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More (1496- 1500). 

John Colet was son of a lord mayor of London, and 
likely to succeed to his father's fortune. His earnest 
religious spirit made him wish to enter the Church. In 
Italy he studied the writings of Pico and Ficino and 
Plato, and above all the Bible, and returned to Oxford full 
of zeal for the new learning and for reform. 

He at once began to lecture at Oxford on St. Paul's 
Epistles, trying to find out what they meant in the 
same common sense way that men would use to under- 
Lectures on stand letters written by a living man to his 
Epistles at friends ; not asking what the learned school- 
Oxford, men had decided that they meant, but giving 
the schoolmen the go by (quoting Plato and Pico and 
Ficino more often than them), and so giving the Epistles 



ch. ii. The Oxford Reformers. 77 

a lifelike power, interest, and freshness quite new to his. 
hearers. By so doing he hoped to set men's minds free 
from the scholastic system, to make them inquire into 
facts for themselves, and drink in at first hand the teach- 
ing of the Apostle. 

For generations men had become monks and clergy- 
men without even reading the New Testament. Colet 
found theological students poring over the books of the 
schoolmen. His lectures were the beginning of a work 
which went on till it quite revolutionized the Attacks the 
theological teaching of the University. Forty schoolmen. 
years after, people found the books of the schoolmen 
set aside as useless, and their torn leaves strung up' 
by the corner as waste paper. 

Colet had seen in Italy how much the ecclesiastical as 
well as the scholastic system needed reform ; and so ins 
his lectures at Oxford he zealously urged the He ur ^ es 
necessity of a reform in the morals of the also the need 
clergy. He urged that it was ecclesiastical astical re- 
scandals and the wicked worldly living of the form - 
clergy, the way they mixed themselves up with politics,.' 
and strove after power and money and pleasure, which set 
men against the Church. ' Whereas,' he said, 'if the clergy 
c lived in the love of God and their neighbours, how soon 
' would then true piety, religion, charity, goodness towards 
' men, simplicity, patience, tolerance of evil, conquer evil 
i with good ! How would it stir up the minds of men 
' everywhere to think well of the Church of Christ.' 

He had seen how wicked the Popes and cardinals of 
Rome were ; and so now, at Oxford, he burst out into 
hot words, written, as he said, 'with grief and tears/' 
against ecclesiastical wickedness in high places. He 
spoke of the Popes as ' wickedly distilling poison, to the 
1 destruction of the Church.' Unless there could be a 
reform of the clergy, from the Pope at the head down to 



7 8 The Protestant Revolution. ft. ii. 

the monks and the clergymen, he saw no chance of 
saving the Church. ' Oh, Jesu Christ, wash for us not 
1 our feet only, but also our hands and our head/ Other- 
K wise our disordered Church cannot be far from death.' 

A man so earnest was sure to make disciples. 
Students burdened by scholastic arguments came to 
He attracts ^ m > anc ^ gladly accepted his advice to ' keep 
disciples to the Bible and the Apostles' Creed, letting 

divines, if they like, dispute about the rest.' They 
followed him from his lectures to his chambers, and 
imbibed his love for St. Paul ; and along with the new 
learning, he stirred up in them that real religion which 
consists in the love of God and one's neighbour, and 
gives men a new power and ruling motive in life. 

Two men especially so came within his influence as to 
join themselves with him in fellow- work ; and it was by 
and fellow- their means that it became, in a way in which 
workers. Colet alone never could have made it, a power 

all over Europe. 

One of them was Thomas (afterwards Sir Thomas, 
and Lord Chancellor) More, a young man, ten years 
Thomas Colet's junior, but so earnest, so full of wit 

More. and genius, and withal so good-natured and 

fascinating, that those who knew him fell in love with 
him. He had caught at Oxford the love of the new 
learning which Grocyn and Linacre had brought from 
Italy ; and, as we shall see by-and-by, became a hearty 
fellow-worker with Colet. Rising by his talents to posts 
of high influence in the state, he became one of the most 
prominent figures in English history during this era. 

The other fellow-worker was the afterwards famous 
Erasmus. He was an orphan, and poor. Thrust, when a 
youth, into a monastery by dishonest guar- 
dians, who had tried to force him to become 
a monk in order to get his little stock of money, he 



CH . ii. The Oxford Reformers. 79 

rebelled when he came of age, left the monastery, and, in 
spite of poverty, earning his living by giving Earlylifeof 
lessons to private pupils, worked his way Erasmus. 
up to such learning as the University of Paris could 
give. Wanting to master Greek, and too poor to go to 
Italy, he came, at the invitation of an English nobleman, 
to learn it at Oxford. He was just turned thirty (the same 
age as Colet), but already hard study, bad lodging, and 
the harassing life of a poor student, driven about and ill- 
used as he had been, had ruined his health. His mental 
energy rose, however, above bodily weakness, 
and he came to Oxford, eager for work, and Oxford" 165 
perhaps for fame. He found the little circle Makes 
of Oxford students zealous for the new learn- ^" ds ™, lth 

Uolet and 

ing and those Greek studies on which his own Thomas 
mind was bent. He became known at once 
to Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, and fell in love with More. 
His own words will best describe what he thought of them. 
1 When' (he wrote in a letter) 'I listen to my friend 
* : Colet, it seems to me like listening to Plato himself. In 
' Grocyn, who does not admire the wide range of his know- 
< ledge ? What could be more searching, deep, and refined 
e than the judgment of Linacre ? Whenever did nature 
f mould a character more gentle, endearing, and happy 
e than Thomas Moris ? ' 

During the time he spent at Oxford, he had many 
talks and discussions with Colet. He had come to 
Oxford full of the spirit of the revival of learn- Comes under 
ing, but not yet hating the scholastic system Coiet's 
as Colet did, nor ready at once to take to 
Coiet's views on the need of reform. He had not yet got 
the religious earnestness which made Colet what he was. 
But Coiet's fervour was infectious ; and before Erasmus 
left Oxford, he saw clearly what a great work Colet had 
begun. 



80 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

Colet urged him to stay at Oxford, and at once to join 
him in his work ; but Erasmus said he was not ready — 
he must first go to Italy to study Greek, as others had done. 
But, he said, 'When I feel that I have the needful firm- 
ness and strength, I will join you.' How effectually he did 
aid him afterwards we shall presently see. 

(c) The Oxford students are scattered till the accession 
of Henry VIII. (i 500-1 509). 

The three During the remainder of the reign of 

friends Henry VII. (nine years or thereabouts), the 

little band of Oxford students was scattered. 

Erasmus left England in 1 500 for France, on his way 
for Italy ; but being robbed of his money by the custom- 
house officers at Dover, he was obliged by poverty to stay 
in France instead of going to Italy. 

Colet went on with his work at Oxford as earnestly as 
ever, till he was made Dean of St. Paul's, and removed 
to London. 

More worked his way up to the bar in London, became 
popular in the City, and very early in life went into Par- 
liament. 

The last years of Henry VII. were marked by the 

Exactions of discontent occasioned by the king's avarice. 

Empsonand His two ministers, Empson and Dudley, tried 

all kinds of schemes to exact money from the 

people without breaking the laws. 

1 These two ravening wolves' (wrote Hall the chro- 
nicler, who lived near enough to the time to feel some of 
the exasperation he described) l had such a guard of false 
' perjured persons appertaining to them, which were by 
1 their commandment empanelled on every quest, that the 
' king was sure to win, whoever lost. Learned men in the 
1 law, when they were required of their advice, would sayj. 



ch. ii, The Oxford Reformers. 8 1 

1 " To agree is the best counsel I can give you." By this 
* undue means these covetous persons filled the king's 
i coffers and enriched themselves. At this unreasonable 
'and extortionate doing noblemen grudged, mean men 
1 kicked, poor men lamented ; preachers openly, at Paul's 
'Cross and other places, exclaimed, rebuked, and de- 
' tested ; but yet they would never amend.' 

The robbing of Erasmus at the Dover custom-house 
was an instance of one of these legal robberies. Thomas 
More also suffered from the royal avarice. More 
He was bold enough to speak and vote in offends 
Parliament against a subsidy which he thought Henry VIL 
was more than the king ought to claim. Whereupon his 
father was fined on some legal but unjust excuse, and he 
himself had to flee into retirement. He thought of going 
into a cloister, and becoming a monk; but, under the 
influence of Colet, who about that time was made Dean 
of St. Paul's, and came to live in London, he married, and 
waited for better days. When Erasmus came The circle 
to England again in 1505, he found Colet, of Oxford 
More, Grocyn, Linacre, and Lilly (another SSgain 
Oxford student who had been to Italy), all in London, 
living in London. They found him the necessary means 
for his journey to Italy, and again he left them, promising 
to return, and hoping then to join them in fellow- work. 

In 1509, while Erasmus was in Italy, Henry VII. died. 

(d) On the accession of Henry VIII. they commence 
their fellow-work (1509). 

The accession of Henry VIII. seemed to the Oxford 
students like the beginning of an Augustan age. The 
other sovereigns of Europe, Maximilian of 
Germany, Louis XII. of France, and Fer- SSffSr 
dinand of Spain, were old men, and, owing to Hen ryViil. 
G 



82 The Protestant Revolution. p T . n. 

their constant wars, poor. Henry VIII. was young and, 
thanks to his father's peaceful foreign policy and unjust 
exactions, rich. He was, as most young princes are, 
popular ; every one hoped good things from him. The 
imprisonment and execution of Empson and Dudley re- 
lieved the people from fear of further exactions. He was 
handsome, fond of athletic sports, and, in the early years 
of his reign, it must be admitted, generous and open- 
handed. A musician, a scholar, and (however fond of 
pleasure) neglecting neither study nor business, of great 
energy, having his eye everywhere and keeping the reins 
of government well in his hands, he seemed likely to make 
a great and popular king. 

By the little band of Oxford students his accession 
was hailed with the highest hopes. He was personally 
known to some of them, and known to be a friend of 
The Oxford the ' new learning.' Colet (already Dean of 
Court ntS,m St. Paul's) was soon made court preacher, 
favour. Thomas More, to the delight of the citizens 

of London, was made under-sheriff, and a few years 
afterwards, such was the fondness of the king for him, 
that, much against his will, he was drawn into the court. 
Even the foreign scholar Erasmus was at once recalled 
from Rome and settled at Cambridge as Greek professor. 
There seemed now to be an open door for Revival and 
Reform, and all in the sunshine of the young king's 
favour. 

(e) Erasmus writes Jus ' Praise of Folly } (1511). 

Erasmus, having been to Italy, was now ready to join 
Colet heartily in fellow-work. On his way from Italy on 
horseback, he planned in his mind, and on his arrival in 
London, before going to Cambridge, he wrote in More's 
house, his f Praise of Folly,' a satire in Latin on the follies 
of the age, which made his name famous among the 
scholars of Europe. 



ch. ii. The Oxford Reformers. 8$ 

He dressed up Folly in her cap and bells, and made 
her deliver an oration to her fellow-fools. 

Prominent amongst the fellow-fools were the scho- 
lastic theologians whom Colet had taught him to dislike. 
' Folly' described them as men who were so 
proud that they could define everything, who scholastic 
knew all about things of which St. Paul was theologians, 
ignorant, could talk of science as though they had been 
consulted when the world was made, could give you 
the dimensions of heaven as though they had been there 
and measured it with plumb and line — men who professed 
universal knowledge, and yet had not time to read the 
Gospels or Epistles of St. Paul. 

Monks were described as shut out of the kingdom of 
heaven in spite of their cowls and their habits, 
while waggoners and husbandmen were ad- 
mitted. / 

' Folly ' claimed also among her votaries Popes who 
(as Julius II. was then doing), instead of ' leaving all/ like 
St. Peter, try to add to St. Peter's patrimony, 
as they called it, fresh possessions by war, and p °P es - 
turn law, religion, peace, and all human affairs upside 
down. 

This bold satire did much to open the eyes of men all 
over Europe to the need of reform, turned the ridicule 
of the world upon the scholastic theologians and monks, 
and as a natural consequence, raised against Erasmus the 
hatred of those whose follies he had so keenly satirized. 

This little book written, he went to Cambridge to 
labour as Greek professor, and also at another great work 
of which we shall have to say more by-and-by — his edition 
of the JSFew Testament. 



84 The Protestant Revolution. 



(/) Colet founds St. PaiiTs School (1510). 

Colet, meanwhile, went on preaching from his pulpit 
at St. Paul's. - On his father's death he came into posses- 
Colet founds sion of his fortune, and nobly devoted it to 
fhe C new° f t ^ ie foundation of a public school by the 
learning. cathedral — in which boys, instead of being 

crammed with scholastic learning, were to be trained 
in the new learning, and instead of being taught the 
bad Latin of the monks, were to be taught the pure Latin 
and Greek which the Oxford students had imported from 
Italy ; and lastly, instead of being flogged and driven, 
were to be attracted and gently led into the paths of 
learning. 

Lilly was appointed schoolmaster. Erasmus and 
Linacre were set to work to write school-books, and find- 
ing that no one else seemed able to write a Latin Gram- 
mar simple and easy enough for beginners, Colet wrote 
one himself. In his preface he said he had aimed, for the 
love and zeal he had for his new school, at making his 
little book on the eight parts of speech as easy as he 
could, ' judging that nothing may be too soft nor too familiar 
for little children, specially learning a tongue unto them 
all strange,' and asking them to 'lift up their little white 
hands ' for him, in return for his prayers for them. Com- 
pare with these gentle words the practice of the common 
run of schoolmasters described by Erasmus, who, too 
ignorant to teach their scholars properly, had to make up 
for it by flogging and scolding, defending their cruelty 
by the theory that it was the schoolmaster's business to 
subdue the spirits of his boys ! 

When it was noised abroad that in this new school of 
the Dean's, classical Latin and Greek were to be taught 
instead of the bad Latin of the monks, and that under the 



ch. ir. The Oxford Reformers. 85 

shadow of St. Paul's cathedral there was thus to be a 
school of the new learning, men of the old school of 
thought began to take alarm. More had Excites the 
jokingly told Colet that it would be so, for ^ c e f th e 
he said the school was like the wooden horse old school. 
filled with armed Greeks for the destruction of barbarian 
Troy ; and so the men of the old school regarded it. 
In spite of the inscription on the building — 

Schola Catechizationis Puerorum in Christi 
Opt. Max. fide et bonis Uteris, 

— one bishop denounced it openly as a c temple of ido- 
latry/ and the Bishop of London began to contrive how 
to get Colet convicted of heresy, and so a stop put to his 
work. 

About this 7 time there was a convocation, and the 
Archbishop of Canterbury gave Colet the duty of preach- 
ing to the assembled bishops and clergy the Coiet's ser- 
opening sermon. He took the opportunity of SeSa°sticai" 
urging, in the strongest and most earnest reform, 
manner, the necessity of a radical reform in the morals 
of the clergy. He told them to their face boldly that 
the wicked worldly life of some of the bishops and 
clergy was far worse heresy than that of poor Lollards, 
twenty-three of whom the Bishop of London had just 
been compelling to abjure, and two of whom he had 
burned in Smithfield a few months before. 

No wonder the Bishop's anger was kindled still more 
against Colet. He and two other bishops of the old 
school joined in laying a charge of heresy _ 

-, • ■, r ■> a ■,-,■■, , -1 Escapesfrom 

against him before the Archbishop, but the a charge of 
latter wisely would not listen to the charge. heresy. 

So the cause of the new learning prospered during the 
early years of Henry VIII. 



86 



The Protestant Revolution. 



PT. II. 



Calais 



(g) The Continental Wars of Henry VIII. 1511-1512. 

If we look back to the section on Italy, and the 
summary* there given of Papal and Continental politics, 
we shall see that it was in 151 1 and 15 12 that Pope 
The Holy Julius II. was bent upon uniting Spain, 
j^i?nst S England, and Germany in a war against 

France. France. Louis XII. had got possession of 

Milan, and was becoming dangerous. The Pope's object 
was to drive Louis out of Italy. Ferdinand of Spain 
wanted not only to get rid of the rivalship of France in 
Italy, but also to annex the province of Navarre to Spain. 
Henry VIII. was 



tempted to revive the 
claims of England on 
the Duchy of Guienne, 
which since the close 
of the Hundred Years' 
War had been annexed 
to the French Crown. 
The Emperor Maxi- 
milian was always 
anxious to enlarge his 
borders at the expense 
of France. So these 
princes formed what 
was called 'the Holy 




FRENCH PROVINCES CLAIMED 
BY HENRY VIII. 



Alliance,' with the Pope at their head, against France* 
Henr and in 151 1 the holy war began. The cam- 

viil. 's first paign of that year ended in the crafty Ferdi- 
campaign. nand getting and keeping Navarre, while 
Henry the Eighth's invasion of Guienne miserably failed. 
His troops mutinied, and returned to England in utter 
disorder. 



ch. ii. The Oxford Reformers. S? 

In the spring of 15 13 preparations were being made 
for another campaign on a greater scale. It was in these 
preparations that his great minister Wol- 
sey's great talents came into play. Henry Wolse y- 
VIII. had set his heart on a brilliant invasion of France 
in order to wipe out the dishonour of the last campaign. 
He watched the equipment of his fleet, and ordered 
Admiral Howard to tell him ' how every ship did sail/ 

Just as everything was ready Julius II. died, and the 
Cardinal de' Medici, Linacre's fellow-student, whose ac- 
quaintance Erasmus had made in Italy, was elected Pope 
under the title of Leo X. The new Pope 
cared for literature and art and building St. succeeded by 
Peter's at Rome more than for war, and ex- Leo X " 
pressed his anxiety to bring about a peace. But Henry 
VIII. had set his heart upon a glorious war, But Henry 
and in spite of the death of the head of the f^adinT 
Holy Alliance, and in spite also of his father- France. 
in-law Ferdinand's hanging back at the last moment, 
he was determined to go on. Admiral Howard in his 
first engagement with the French, lost his life in a 
brilliant exploit, and his crew, disheartened, returned to 
Plymouth. But still Henry VIII. set sail with the rest of 
the ships for Calais, with ' such a fleet as Neptune never 
saw before,' and from Calais he marched his 
army a few leagues beyond the French fron- Battle of the 
tier, took some towns of small importancej s P urs - 
and turned the French army to flight at the Battle of the 
Spurs. 

He did little harm to France or good to England, but 
got some sort of a victory, and so gratified his vanity. 
There were of course great rejoicings, tourna- 

, . . , . ., r Scotch mva- 

ments, and pageants, but just in the midst of sion of Eng- 
them came the news that the Scotch, always land ' 
troublesome neighbours in those days, before the union of 



88 The Protestant Revolution. pt. it: 

the two kingdoms, had, incited by France, taken the 
opportunity of Henry VIIL's absence in France to in- 
vade England, but that through the zeal and energy of 
Queen Catherine they had been defeated, and the King 
Battle of of -Scots himself slain, with a host of the 

Fiodden. Scotch nobility, at the Battle of Flodden. 

Whereupon Henry VIII., finding nothing better to do, 
amid great show of rejoicing returned to England, bent 
upon preparing for another invasion by-and-by. 

But his father-in-law, Ferdinand, had served him so 
badly in these two campaigns — leaving him to bear the 
Henry VIII brunt of them, while he contented himself with 
now joins taking and keeping Navarre — that the end of 

France . „ . 

against it was a strange shuffling of the cards. Henry 

Spain. y IIL ma(ie peace w i th Louis XII., and Eng- 

land and France combined to wrest back again from 
Spain that very province of Navarre which Henry VIII. 
had helped Ferdinand to wrest from France only a few 
years before. 

In January 15 15 this unholy alliance was broken by 
Louis XII.'s death. He was succeeded by Francis I., 

. who, eager, like his young rival, Henry VIII., 

succeeded by to win his spurs in a European war, at once 
Francis I. declared his intention that ' the monarchy of 
Francis I. Christendom should rest under the banner 

invades . . , ■ 

Italy, and of France, as it was wont to do ! ' A few 
Mnan. rS months after, he started on the Italian cam- 

paign, in which, after defeating the hired 
Swiss soldiers of the Emperor and his allies at the battle 
of Marignano, he recovered the Duchy of Milan. 
Again Ene- Again both Ferdinand and Henry VIII. 

land and were made friends by their common jealousy 

binTagainst of France. It would never do to let France 
France. become the first power in Europe. 

So during these years, instead of an Augustan age of 



ch. ii. The Oxford Reformers. 89 

peace, reform, and progress in the new learning and 
civilisation, through the jealousy and lust of 
military glory of her kings, stirred up by the of kings^ 
late warlike Pope and his Holy Alliance, gereXs'of 
Europe was harried with these barbarous wars ! Europe. 

We have seen, in the chapter on France, how her 
national wars tended to increase the power of the Crown, 
and how the fact that the Crown was absolute The 
and backed by its standing army, while it tended to 
tended to keep France a united kingdom on Absolute? 25 ' 
the map, injured the nation. So it was also in The ex _ 
measure — happily only in measure — in Eng- ample of 
land. These wars tended to make the king 
absolute. To carry them on, not only were all the 
hoarded treasures of Henry VII. dispersed, but fresh 
taxes were needed ; and when all the taxes were spent 
that could be got legally out of votes of Parliament, 
Wolsey was driven to get more money by illegal means. 
Had the war-fever gone on a little longer — Narrow 
just so long as to establish the precedent of escape of 
the king's levying taxes without consent of n ° 
Parliament — then England might well have lost her 
free constitution, just as France had already done. But, 
happily, this was not so to be. 

In the meantime, let us see how the Oxford Reformers 
acted in this crisis of European affairs, how they used all 
their influence to set the public opinion of the educated 
world against this evil policy of European princes. 

Colet preached against the wars to the Colet 
people from his pulpit at St. Paul's, and to ^tStfie 
the king from the pulpit of the royal chapel ; wars, 
and his enemies tried to get him into trouble with the 
king for doing so. But Henry VIII., wild as he was for 
military glory, was generous enough to respect the sin- 
cerity and boldness of the dean ; and, though not wise 
enough to follow his advice, refused to stop his preaching. 



go The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii„ 

Erasmus made known to his learned friends all over 
Europe this bold conduct of Colet and his hatred of war. 
Erasmus -^ e a l so > i n hi s letters to the Pope, princes, 

against cardinals, bishops, and influential men every- 

where, protested against the false international 
policy which sacrificed the good of the people to the am- 
bition of kings. 

and also More also made no secret to the king that 

More - he was opposed to his conquering France, 

and that he hated the wars. 



(/z) The kind of Reform aimed at by the Oxford 
Reformers. 

It so happened that just at this time Erasmus was 
invited to the court of Prince Charles of the Netherlands 
Erasmus (afterwards the Emperor Charles V.), and that 

made a More was also being drawn by Henry VIII. 

councillor . .. , . _. , , , , 

of Prince mto his royal service. They both at length 
Charles. yielded. Erasmus became a privy councillor 

More drawn of Prince Charles, on condition that it should 
viii. ' s enr " not interfere with his literary work. More 
service. became a courtier of Henry VIII. when peace 

was made with France, on condition that in all things 
he should ' first look to God, and after Him to the king.' 

Both Erasmus and More, in thus entering royal 
service, published pamphlets or books containing a state- 
ment of their views on politics. Erasmus called his 
' The Christian Prince;' More called his a 'Description 
of the Commonwealth of Utopia.' 

Erasmus, in his 'Christian Prince,' urged that the 
The Golden Ride ought to guide the actions of 

PHnce^of princes — that they should never enter upon a 
Erasmus. war that could possibly be avoided, that the 
good of their people should be their sole object, that it 



ck. it, The Oxford Reformers. 91 

was the people's choice which gave a king his title to his 
throne, that a constitutional monarchy is much better 
than an absolute one, that kings should aim at taxing 
their people as little as possible ; that the necessaries 
of life, things in common use among the lowest classes, 
ought not to be taxed, but luxuries of the rich, and so 
on : the key-note of the whole being that the object 
of nations .and governments is the common weal of the 
whole people. 

In the meanwhile, More, in his { Utopia, 5 or descrip- 
tion of the manners and customs of an ideal common- 
wealth ('Utopia 7 meaning ' nowhere'), urged M ore > s 
just the same points. The Utopians elected 'Utopia.' 
their own king, as well as his council or parliament. 
They would not let him rule over another country as 
well : they s,aid he had enough to do to govern their 
own island. The Utopians hated war as the worst of 
evils; the Utopians aimed not at making the king and 
a few nobles rich, but the whole people. All property 
belonged to the nation, and so all the people were well 
off. Nor was education confined to one class; in Utopia 
everyone was taught to read and write. All magistrates 
and priests were elected by the people. Every family had 
a vote, and the votes were taken by ballot. Thus the key- 
note of More's ' Utopia' was, like the i Christian Prince 7 
of Erasmus, that governments and nations exist for the 
common weal of the whole people. . . 

If we turn back to the description already given of 
the two points which mark the spirit of modern civilisation, 
and judge these sentiments of Erasmus and They 
More from that point of view, we cannot fail e £ tered , 
to see how thoroughly they entered into the intothi Y 
spirit of the new era, and how correct and modern 
far-reaching were the reforms which they civilisation. 
urged upon the public opinion of Europe. 



92 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ir. 

We must not leave the Oxford Reformers without 
trying to get a clear idea of the kind of religious reform 
which they urged. 

We have seen that Colet's object was to set the minds 
The cha- °^ V 1 ^ f ree f rorn the bonds of the scholastic 
racter of system, by leading men back from the school- 

rcfigious men to the teaching of Christ and His 

reform. Apostles in the New Testament. 

Erasmus had been all this while labouring hard in 
fellow-work with him. He had for years been working 
at, and now, in 15 16, published at the printing-press at 
Basle, a book which did more to prepare the way for the 
The New religious reformation than any other book 
Testament published during this era. This was his edition 

of Erasmus. - , ' _ ' ... 

of the New Testament, containing, in two 
columns side by side, the original Greek and a new 
Latin translation of his own. He thus realized a great 
object, which Colet had long had in view, viz., not only 
to draw men away from scholastic theology, but to place 
before them, in all the freshness of the original language 
and a new translation, the ' living picture' of Christ and 
His Apostles contained in the New Testament. By so 
doing he laid a firm foundation for another great religious 
reform, viz., the translation of the New Testament into 
what was called 'the vulgar tongue' of each country, 
thus bringing it within reach of the people as well as of 
the clergy. 

'I wish' (Erasmus said in his preface to his New 
Testament) ' that even the weakest woman should read 
{ the Gospels — should read the Epistles of Paul; and I wish 
' that they were translated into all languages, so that they 
6 might be read and understood not only by Scots and 
6 Irishmen, but also by Turks and Saracens. I long that 
c the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself 
£ as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum 



ch. ii. The Oxford Reformers. 93 

i them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller should 
6 beguile with their stories the tedium of his journey. 5 

Of course this great work of Erasmus excited the oppo- 
sition and hatred of the men of the old school, and espe- 
cially of the monks and scholastic divines, to whom the 
old Vulgate version was sacred, and Greek a heretical 
tongue. But the New Testament went through several 
large editions, and when, a few years after, the learned 
men of the Sorbonne at Paris complained of what they 
called its heresies, Erasmus was able to reply triumphantly, 
' You are too late in your objections. You should have 
spoken sooner. It is now scattered over Europe by 
thousands of copies V 

One other point we have to fix in our minds — the 
attitude of the Oxford Reformers to the ecclesiastical 
system. We have seen that their notion of . , 

religion was that it was a thing of the heart — ecciesiasti- 
the love of God and man. They believed ^/byThe 
that it was intended to bind men together Oxford Re- 
in a common brotherhood, not to divide them 
into sects. They complained how rival orders of monks 
and schools of theology hated one another. Christians 
might differ about doctrines, but they ought to agree in 
the worship of God and in their love of one They aimed 
another. Hence More in his Utopia had tnd tolerant 
described the Utopians as giving full tolera- Church. 
tion to all varieties of doctrines and differences of creeds ; 
and pictured all worshipping together in one united and 
simple mode of worship, expressly so arranged as to hurt 
the feelings of no sect among them, so that they all might 
join in it as an expression of their common brotherhood 
in the sight of God. 

It is clear that, holding these views, they were likely 
to urge, as they did earnestly urge, the reform of the 
ecclesiastical system, but that if at any time a great 



94 The Protestant Revolution. ft. u. 

dissension were to arise in the Church, they would urge 
that the Church should be reformed and widened so as 
to give offence to neither party, and include 
likely to op- both within it, and would oppose with all their 
pose schism. m ight anything which should break up its unity 
and cause a schism. Whether right or wrong, this would 
be the course which their own deep convictions would be 
likely to lead them to take, and this, we shall see, was the 
line the survivors of them did take when the Protestant 
struggle came on. We say ' the survivors,' because Colet 
did not live to work much longer. Even now, driven into 
retirement by the persecution of the old Bishop of London, 
he could do little but work at his school. And he died in 
1519. 

To the beginnings of the Protestant movement we 
must now turn our attention. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WITTENBERG REFORMERS. 

(a) Martin Luther becomes a Reformer. 

Martin Luther was born in 1483, and so was 15 years 

younger than Erasmus and Colet, and three 
Bom 1483. J ° . M , . r . 

years younger even than their young friend 

More. 

His great-grandfather and grandfather were Saxon 

peasants, but his father being a younger son had left 

Sent to home and become a miner or slate-cutter at 

and°°to uni- Mansfeld in Thuringia. Both his parents were 

versity. rough and hot-tempered, but true and honest 

at heart. Though working hard for a living, they sent 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers. 95 

their sons to school, and wishing Martin to become a 
lawyer, they found means to send him to the university 
of Erfurt. There he took his degree of M.A. 

In 1505, in fulfilment some say of a vow made in a 
dreadful thunderstorm, when he thought his end was 
near, Luther, contrary to his father's wishes, Becomes a 
left his law studies and entered the Augus- monk - 
tine monastery at Erfurt. He inherited the supersti- 
tious nature of the German peasantry. He traced every 
harm that came to him through passion and temptation 
all alike to the Devil. His conscience was often troubled. 
His fasts and penances did not give him peace. He 
passed through great mental struggles, sometimes shut 
himself up in his cell for days, and once was found 
senseless on the floor. At length he found peace of 
mind in the doctrine of ' justification by faith/ i.e., that 
forgiveness of sins, instead of being got by fasts and 
penances and ceremonies, is given freely to those who 
have faith in Christ. This doctrine he learned partly from 
the pious vicar-general of the monastery, partly from 
the works of St. Augustine, and under their guidance 
from a study of the Bible. From this time he Adopts the 
accepted also other parts of the theology of 5^1°^°/ 
St. Augustine, and especially those which, tine. 
because they were afterwards adopted by Calvin, are 
now called ' Calvinistic,' such as that all things are fated 
to happen according to the divine will, that man has 
therefore no free will, and that only an elect number, 
predestinated to receive the gift of faith, are saved. 

It is well to mark here that these Augustinian doc- 
trines were, in fact, a part of that scholastic theology 
from which the Oxford Reformers were trying And in this 
to set men free. In not accepting them they JfoxfoJd" 1 
differed from Luther. But they and Luther Reformers. 
had one thing in common. They alike held that religion 



g6 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

did not consist in ceremonies, but was a thing of the heart ; 
that true worship must be in spirit and in truth. 

In 1508 Luther was removed from Erfurt to the Au- 
gustinian monastery at Wittenberg, and soon 
moves to" after made preacher there at the University 
Wittenberg. rece ntly founded by the Elector of Saxony. 

In 1 5 10 he was sent on an errand for his monastery 

to Rome. There he found wicked priests performing 

masses in the churches, ignorant worship- 
Visits Rome. . . c r . r , 

pers buying forgiveness of sms from the 
priests, and doing at their bidding all kinds of penances ; 
and he came back zealous, like Colet, for reform, and 
with the words 'the just shall live by faith' more than 
ever ringing in his ears. 

He had been preaching and teaching the theology of 
St. Augustine at Wittenberg several years with great ear- 
Reads the nestness, when in 1 5 1 6 h e read the new edition 
meTtof^' of the New Testament by Erasmus. The 
Erasmus. works of Erasmus had an honourable place 
on the shelves of the Elector of Saxony's library, and 
his New Testament was the common talk of learned men 
at the universities, even at this youngest of them all — 
Wittenberg. Luther eagerly turned over its pages, re- 
joicing in the new light it shed on old familiar passages ; 
but what a disappointment it was to him as by degrees 
he discovered that there was a great difference between 
Erasmus and himself — that Erasmus did not accept those 
Augustinian doctrines on which his own faith was built .! 
He knew that Erasmus was doing a great work towards 
the needed reform, and this made it all the more painful 
to find that in these points they differed. He was ' moved' 
Finds out by it, but, he wrote to a friend, ' I keep it to 
ence intheir myself, lest I should play into the hands of 
theology. y s enemies. May God give him under- 
standing in his own good time! ' 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers. 97 

This is a fact that in justice to both should never be 
forgotten. Luther was conscious of it from the first, and 
it had this future significance, that if Protestantism (as it 
afterwards did) should follow Luther and adopt the 
Augustinian theology, Erasmus and the Oxford Reformers 
never could become Protestants. Luther might wisely 
try to keep it secret, but if matters of doctrine should 
ever come to the front, the breach between them was sure 
to come out. 

(b) The Sale of Indulgences (15 17). 

While Luther was preaching Augustinian doctrines at 
Wittenberg, and Erasmus was hard at work at a second 
edition of his New Testament, pressing More's ' Utopia' 
and his own i Christian Prince ' on the notice of princes 
and their courtiers, expressing to his friends at Rome his 
hopes that under Leo X. Rome might become the centre 
of peace and religion, Europe was all at once brought by 
the scandalous conduct of Princes and the Pope to the 
brink of revolution. 

Leo X. wanted money to help his nephew in a little war 
he had on hand. To get this money he offered to grant 
indulgences or pardons at a certain price, Leo x > s 
to those who would contribute money to the scheme to 
building of St. Peter's at Rome. The people fy induig- 
were still ignorant enough to believe in the ences - 
Pope's power to grant pardons for sins, and there was no 
doubt they would buy them, and so gold would flow into 
the coffers of Rome. There was one obstacle. Princes 
were growing jealous of their subjects' money being drawn 
towards Rome. But Leo X. got over this ob- 

, , . . , , , „ TT Offers prm- 

stacle by giving them a share in the spoil. He cesa share 
offered Henry VIII. one-fourth of what came in the s?oiL 
from England, but Henry VIII. haggled and bargained 
to get a third ! Kings had made themselves poor by their 
H 



98 The Protestant Revolution. PT . n. 

wars, and a share in the papal spoils on their own subjects 
was a greater temptation than they could resist. 

Erasmus in his l Praise of Folly ' had described in- 
dulgences as ' the crime of false pardons/ and 
writesbft- now in every letter and book he wrote he 
terly against bi tter iy complained of the Pope and Princes 
for resorting to them again. 
He wrote to Colet : — 

' I have made up my mind to spend the remainder of my life 
with you in retirement from a world which is everywhere rotten. 
Ecclesiastical hypocrites rule in the courts of princes. The Court 
of Rome clearly has lost all sense of shame ; for what could be 
more shameless than these continued indulgences ! ' 

And in a letter to another friend, he said : — 

' All sense of shame has vanished from human affairs. I see that 
the very height of tyranny has been reached. The Pope and Kings 
count the people not as men, but as cattle in the market!' 

But though Erasmus numbered among his friends 
Leo X., Henry VIII., Francis I., and Prince Charles, he 
found them deaf to his satire, and unwilling 
kings will to reform abuses which filled their treasuries. 
not listen. They wou i^ not ii sten to Erasmus. It re- 

mained to be proved whether they would listen to Luther ! 

(c) Luther's Attack on Indulgences (1517.) 

Wittenberg was an old-fashioned town in Saxony, on 
the Elbe. Its main street was parallel with the broad 
river, and within its walls, at one end of it, 
erg ' near the Elster gate, lay the University, 
founded by the good Elector — Frederic of Saxony— of 
which Luther was a professor ; while at the other end of 
it was the palace of the Elector and the palace church of 
All Saints. The great parish church lifted its two towers 
from the centre of the town, a little back from the main 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers. 99 

street. This was the town in which Luther had been 
preaching for years, and towards which Tetzel, 
the seller of indulgences, now came, just as n^rf selling 
he did to other towns, vending his ' false indulgences. 
pardons ' — granting indulgences for sins to those who 
could pay for them, and offering to release from purgatory 
the souls of the dead, if any of their friends would pay for 
their release. As soon as the money chinked in his 
money-box, the souls of their friends would be let out of 
purgatory. This was the gospel of Tetzel. It made 
Luther's blood boil. He knew that what the Pope wanted 
was people's money, and that the whole thing was a cheat. 
This his Augustinian theology had taught him ; and he 
was not a man to hold back when he saw what ought to 
be done. He did see it. On the day before the festival 
of All Saints, ; on which the relics of the Church were dis- 
played to the crowds of country people who nocked into 
the town, Luther passed down the long street with a copy 
of ninety-five theses or statements against in- Luther's 
dulgences in his hand, and nailed them upon asSnst in- 
the door of the palace church ready for the dulgences. 
festival on the morrow. Also on All Saints day he read 
them to the people in the great parish church. 

It would not have mattered much to Tetzel or the Pope 
that the monk of Wittenberg had nailed up his papers on 
the palace church, had it not been that he was He is backed 
backed by the Elector of Saxony. The Sg^^ 
Elector was an honest man, and had the good Saxony. 
of the' German people at heart. Luther's theses laid 
hold of his mind, and a few days after it is said that he 
dreamed that he saw the monk writing on the door of 
his church in letters so large that he could read them 
eighteen miles off at his palace where he was, and that 
the pen grew longer and longer, till at last it reached to 
Rome, touched the Pope's triple crown and made it totter. 
h 2 



ioo The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

He was stretching out his arm to catch it when he awoke ! 
The Elector of Saxony, whether he dreamed this dream 
awake or asleep, was at least wide awake enough to refuse 
permission for Tetzel to enter his dominions. 

Then came a year or two of controversy and angry 
disputes ; and just at the right time came Philip 
Philip Melanchthon, from the University of Tubin- 

Meianch- gen, to strengthen the staff of the Elector's 

thon comes TT . . „._.. , , 

to witten- new University at Wittenberg — a man deep m 
berg. Hebrew and Greek, a half-disciple of Eras- 

mus — already pointed out as likely to turn out ' Erasmus 
II./ of gentle, sensitive, and affectionate nature, the very 
opposite of Luther, but yet just what was wanted in another 
Wittenberg Reformer — to help in argument and width of 
learning ; to be in fact to Luther, partly what Erasmus 
had been to Colet. In the weary and hot disputes which 
now came upon Luther, Melanchthon was always at his 
elbow, and helped him in his arguments ; while the fame 
of Luther's manly conduct and Melanchthon's learning 
all helped to draw students to the University from far and 
near, and so to spread the views of the Wittenberg 
Reformers more and more widely. 



{d) The Election of Charles V. to the Empire (15 19). 

Suddenly, in 15 19, the noise of religious disputes was 
drowned in the still greater noise of political excitement. 
Death of Maximilian died, and a new Emperor had to 

Maximilian, be elected. Prince Charles, who was now 
for the King of Spain also, wanted to be Emperor ; 

Empire. so ^j^ jr ran cis I., though a Frenchman ; so 

did Henry VIII., claiming that, though England was not 
a subject of the Empire, the English language was a 
German tongue, while French was not. The princes of 
the Empire wanted the Elector of Saxony to be Emperor, 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers. 101 

but he was the one man who cared most for the interests 
of Germany, and had least selfish ambition. 

It was a question which of the three princes could 
bribe a majority of the seven Electors. Henry VIII. did 
not risk enough to give himself a chance. It was not 
really likely that, however much they might 
be bribed, the Electors, who were all German elected 
princes, would choose a Frenchman. The infSce^f 
Elector of Saxony practically decided the the Elector 
election in favour of Prince Cha'rles. The 
following letter of Erasmus, who was a councillor of 
Prince Charles, will show what manner of man the good 
Elector was. 

' The Duke Frederic of Saxony has written twice to me in reply 
to my letter. Luther is supported solely by his protection. He 
says that he has acted thus for the sake rather of the cause than of 
the person (of Luther). He adds, that he will not lend himself to 
the oppression of innocence in his dominions by the malice of those 
who \ee~k their own, and not the things of Christ.' . . . ' When the 
imperial crown was offered to Frederic of Saxony by all (the Elec- 
tors), with great magnanimity he refused it, the very day before 
Charles was elected. And Charles never would have worn the 
imperial title had it not been declined by Frederic, whose glory in 
refusing the honour was greater than if he had accepted it. When 
he was asked who he thought should be elected, he said that no 
one seemed to him able to bear the weight of so great a name but 
Charles. In the same noble spirit he firmly refused the 30,000 florins 
offered him by our people [i.e. the agents of Charles). When he was 
urged that at least he would allow 10,000 florins to be given to his 
servants, ' ' They may take them " (he said) ' ' if they like, but no one 
shall remain my servant another day who accepts a single piece of 
gold." The next day he took horse and departed, lest they should 
continue to bother him. This was related to me as entirely credible 
by the Bishop of Liege, who was present at the Imperial Diet.' 

Would that Charles V. had followed throughout his 
reign the counsels of the good Elector to whom he owed 
his crown ! Charles's grandfather, Ferdinand, had died 
only a few months before, and he was himself in Spain, 



02 



The Protestant Revolution. 




settling 

elected. We have now to mark what power had fallen 
into the hands of this prince of the House of Hapsburg. 
Extent of ® n ^e ma P are distinguished the Austrian, 
Charles v.'s Burgundian, and Spanish provinces which 
came under his rule. We must remember, 
too, how the ambition of Spain was to increase its Italian 
possessions, and that, as head of the' Holy Roman Em- 
pire,' he was also nominally King of Italy ! 

(e) Luther's Breach with Rome (1520). 
While these political events had been absorbing atten- 
tion, the religious disputes between Luther and the papal 
party had been going on. 

Luther finds They had this singular effect upon Luther : 

himself a they drove him to see that his Augustinian 

views were identical with those of Wiclif and 

Huss. He was astonished, as he described it, to find 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers, 103 

that ' he was a Hussite without knowing it ; that St. 
Paul and Augustine were Hussites !' 

The fact was that Wiclif and Huss, like Luther, had 
in a great degree got their views from the works of St. 
Augustine : they had so adopted many of the doctrines 
which belong to what we have said is now called the 
Calvinistic theology. 

This discovery hastened on his quarrel with the Pope. 
The Pope and Councils had denounced Wiclif and Huss 
as heretics ; therefore Popes and Councils were not 
infallible. This was the conclusion to which 
Luther came. Luther had declared himself a Papal Bull 
Hussite, therefore the papal party contended l^ 1 ^ 
he must, like Huss, be a heretic ; and the 
long continuance of the Hussite wars being taken into 
account, he must be a dangerous heretic. So the Pope 
made up his mind to issue a Papal Bull against Luther. 

When rumours of this reached Luther, so far from 
being fearful, he became defiant. He at once wrote two 
pamphlets. 

The first was addressed ' To the Nobility of the German 
nation .' It was published, in both Latin and German, in 
1520, and 4,000 copies were at once sold. If Luther > s 
we bear in mind what has already been said pamphlet to 
in the section 'On the Ecclesiastical Sys- oftheGer- 
tem,' the chief points of the pamphlet will man nation - 
be easily understood. 

The gist of it was as follows : — 

'To his Imperial Majesty and the Christian Nobility of the Ger- 
man nation, Martin Luther wishes grace, &c. The Romanists have 
raised round themselves walls to protect themselves from reform. 
One is their doctrine, that there are two separate estates : the one 
spiritual, viz. pope, bishops, priests, and monks ; the other secular, 
viz. princes, nobles, artisans, and peasants. And they lay it down 
that the secular power has no power over the spiritual, but that the 



104 The Protestant Revolution. pt.it. 

spiritual is above the secular ; whereas, in truth, all Christians are 
spiritual, and there is no difference between them. The secular 
power is of God, to punish the wicked and protect the good, and so 
has rule over the whole body of Christians, without exception, pope, 
bishops, monks, nuns and all. For St. Paul says ' Let every soul 
(and I reckon the Pope one) be subject to the higher powers.' 
[Luther was writing this to the secular princes, and they were likely 
to listen to this setting up of their authority above that of the clergy. 
He was writing also to the German nation, and he knew well how 
to catch their ear too.] 'Why should 300,000 florins be sent every 
year from Germany to Rome? Why do the Germans let themselves 
be fleeced by cardinals who get hold of the best preferments and 
spend the revenues at Rome ? Let us not give another farthing to the 
Pope as subsidies against the Turks ; the whole thing is a snare to 
drain us of more money. Let the secular authorities send no more 
annates to Rome. Let the power of the Pope be reduced within 
clear limits. Let there be fewer cardinals, and let them not keep 
the best things to themselves. Let the national churches be more 
independent of Rome. Let there be fewer pilgrimages to Italy. 
Let there be fewer convents. Let priests marry. Let begging be 
stopped by making each parish take charge of its own poor. Let 
us inquire into the position of the Bohemians, and if Huss was in 
the right, let us join with him in resisting Rome.' 

And then, at the end, he threw these few words of 
defiance at the Pope : — 

' Enough for this time ! I know right well that I have sung in a 
high strain. Well, I know another little song about Rome and her 
people ! Do their ears itch? I will sing it also, and in the highest 
notes ! Dost thou know well, my dear Rome, what I mean ? ' 

His other pamphlet — his < other little song about 
Rome' — was an attack upon her doctrines. It was 
entitled i On the Babylonish Captivity of the 
pamphlet Church, and in it he repeated his condem- 

^Bab^lonish na -tion of indulgences, denied that the supre- 
Captivityof macy of the Pope was of divine right, de- 
clared the Pope a usurper, and the Papacy 
the kingdom of Babylon ; and then, turning to matters of 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers. 105 

doctrine, boldly reduced the sacraments of the Church, 
by an appeal to Scripture, from seven to three — Baptism, 
Penance, and the Lord's Supper. He ended this pamphlet 
in as defiant a tone as the other. ' He heard' (he said) 
' that Bulls and other terrible Papistical things were being 
' prepared, by which he was to be urged to recant or be 
c declared a heretic. Let this little book be taken as a part 
1 of his recantation, and as an earnest of what was to 
' come ! ' 

While the printing-press was scattering thousands of 
copies of these pamphlets all over Germany, in Latin for 
the learned, and in German for the common The Bull 
people, the Bull arrived, and the Elector of arrives. 
Saxony was ordered by the Pope to deliver up the heretic 
Luther. The question now was, What would Luther do 
with the Bull, and the Elector with Luther ? 

(/) The Elector of Saxony consults Erasmus, 
December 6, 1520. 

Much at this moment depended on what the good 
Elector of Saxony would do. Well was it that the fate of 
Luther lay in the hands of so conscientious a prince. He 
and his secretary Spalatin were at Cologne, where Charles 
V., after his recent coronation, was holding his court. 
Melanchthon and Luther were in constant correspondence 
with Spalatin. Melanchthon wrote that all their hopes 
rested with the prince, and urged Spalatin to do his best 
to prevent Luther being crushed, — ' a man/ he said, ' who 
seemed- to him almost inspired, and whom he dared to 
put not only above any other man of the age, but even 
above all the Augustines and Jeromes of any age ! ' So 
enthusiastic a disciple of the bold Luther had the gentle 
Melanchthon become ! Spalatin did his best. 

Aleander, the Pope's nuncio, and supposed author of 
the ' Bull,' was at Cologne, wild against Luther and doing 



io6 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ri. 

all he could to get the Emperor to make common cause 
with the Pope. He knew that the Elector of Saxony 
stood in the way, and did his best to win him 
the Pope''s over. Erasmus, being one of the Emperor's 
to "?n'over S council, also was there, and Aleander knew 
the Elector that he, too, was against the crushing of the 
i0ny ' poor monk, and if he could have bribed him 
over with a bishopric, or secretly poisoned him, there is 
evidence that it would most likely have been done. The 
Elector was bent upon doing what was right and best for 
Germany and for Christendom, and anxious to have the 
advice of the best and the wisest men upon the course he 
should take. Erasmus had written to the Wittenberg Re- 
formers, praising their zeal, but advising more gentleness. 
Melanchthon had sent the letter from Erasmus to the good 
Elector, who now wanted to consult Erasmus confiden- 
tially himself. Spalatin managed the interview. It was 
in the Elector's rooms at the inn of * The Three Kings' 
that they met, the Elector, Erasmus, and Spalatin. The 
Elector asked of Erasmus through Spalatin, in Latin, as 
they stood over the fire, 'What he really thought of 
Luther ? ' and fixed his eye eagerly upon him 

The Elector ' J 

asks advice as he waited for an answer. Erasmus said, 
of Erasmus, with a sm ii Gj i Luther has committed two 
crimes ! He has hit the Pope on the crown and the 
monks on the belly.' 

This was exactly the truth. The Elector's dream had 
come true. Luther's great pen had reached to Rome and 
touched the Pope's triple crown. Leo X. was a sort of 
patron of Erasmus, but that did not hinder Erasmus from 
condemning the Bull. The monks were his old enemies, 
bitter against the new learning, haters of himself and 
Colet as well as Luther, because they saw their craft was 
in danger as men's eyes became more and more opened. 
Therefore Erasmus could afford to smile a bitter sarcastic 



ch. in. The Wittenberg Reformers. 1 07 

smile at the expense of both Pope and monks. Before 
he left he wrote down on paper a short statement of his 
opinion that the monks' hatred of the new The advice 
learning was at the bottom of their zeal of Erasmus, 
against Luther, whilst only two universities had con- 
demned him ; that Luther's demand to be properly heard 
was a fair one ; and that being a man void of ambition, he 
was less likely to be a heretic. At all events the views of 
Luther's opponents were worse than his ; all honest men 
disapproved of the Bull ; and clemency was what ought 
to be expected of the new Emperor. 

While thus he spoke in favour of fair dealing with 
Luther, he at the same time found much fault with Luther's 
violent way of going to work and his abusive The Elector 
language. The result of the interview was follows u - 
reported to Luther. Melanchthon and he were well 
satisfied with the advice given by Erasmus. They 
considered that it had great weight in strengthening 
the Elector in favour of Luther. At all events the Elector 
followed it in two points — he remained firm in defence of 
Luther, and at the same time he wrote and recommended 
to Luther more of that gentleness the want of which had 
displeased Erasmus. 

(£•) Luther burns the Pope's Bull, December 10, 1520. 

Perhaps the advice of the Elector to Luther came just 
too late ! The meeting with Erasmus at the inn of the 
c Three Kings' at Cologne was on December 5. In the 
meantime Luther had been making up his mind what to 
do, and on the 10th he did it, Ave may suppose before the 
posts from Cologne had reached him. 

Excited, and as Melanchthon said, seeming almost 
inspired, conscious of right and also of power, Luther 
wished all Europe to see that a German monk could dare 
to defy the Pope. Had there been a mountain at Wit- 



1 08 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

tenberg he would have lit his bonfire on the top, and let 
the world, far and near, see the Pope's Bull blaze in its 
T , flames. But there was not even a hill in that 

Luther . . 

burns the flat country. So in solemn procession, at the 
BulL head of his fellow doctors and the students of 

the university, he marched through the Elster gate, and 
there, outside the city walls, in presence of the great 
German river Elbe, he burned the Bull, and as many 
Roman law books as he could find. His burning the Bull 
against himself was a personal act of defiance. His 
burning the Roman law books was a public declaration 
that the German nation ought not to be subject to the 
jurisdiction of Rome. Amid the cheers of the crowd, 
Luther returned to his rooms. That a man of hot temper, 
fastening by this daring act the eyes of all Europe upon 
himself, assuming as it were the leadership of a national 
crusade against the Pope of Rome, should be for the 
moment carried away by excitement into extravagance 
was only natural. Luther was in fact greatly excited, 
and on the next day, in his crowded lecture room, let him- 
self utter wild words, declaring that those who did not 
join in contending against the Pope could not be saved, 
and that those who took delight in the Pope's religion must 
be lost for ever. He then wrote an abusive reply to the 
Bull, hurling all sorts of bad names against the Pope, and 
pushing his Augustinian doctrines to so extreme a point as 
to amount to fatalism. 

Grand as is the figure of Luther on the page of history, 

as, in December 1520, he dared to make himself the 

mouth-piece of Germany, demanding reform, threatening 

revolution if reform could not be had, it must be admitted 

that he was playing with fire. Was not the 

Erasmus . , . ~ . .,..,. 

fears revolu- tram already laid for revolution? Will not 
tlon- such wild words lead to still wilder acts of the 

ignorant peasantry ? Sober-minded lookers on, like Eras- 



ch. iv. The Wittenberg Reformers. 109 

mus, feared this. He had feared from the first that Luther's 
want of discretion might bring on a ' universal revolu- 
tion/ and .had therefore urged moderation. Instead of 
moderation had come still wilder defiance. ' Now,' he 
wrote, ' I see no end of it but the turning upside down of 
* the whole world. . . . When I was at Cologne I made 
' every effort that Luther might have the glory of obedience 
' and the Pope of clemency, and some of the sovereigns 
' approved this advice. But lo and behold, the burning of 
1 the Decretals, the " Babylonish captivity ; " those pro- 
' positions of Luther, so much stronger than they need be, 
' have made the evil apparently incurable.' 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CRISIS.— REFORM OR REVOLUTION.— REFORM 
REFUSED BY THE RULING POWERS. 

(a) Ulrich von Hut ten and Franz von Sicking en. 

The fears of Erasmus were well founded. There were 
wilder spirits in Germany than Luther. 

Not far north of Worms, where the first Diet of the 
Emperor Charles V. was going to meet, was the castle 
of Ebernburg, where the bold knight Franz von Sickingen 
had gathered round him the chiefs of these wild spirits. 
Franz himself was a wild lawless knight, living The Rob ; n 
upon private war, hiring out himself and his Hoods of 
soldiers to fight out private quarrels, and, like sidewith 
his relative Goetz von Bertichingen, popular Luther - 
because of his bravery and rough justice. Goetz and 
Franz might be said to be in many respects, the Robin 
Hoods of Germany. 



1 1 o The Protestant Revolution. PT . n. 

Such a man as Franz was sure to side with Luther 
though he had already engaged himself and his soldiers 
for hire to the Emperor Charles V. One of his guests at 
uirichvon t ^ ie cast ^ e was Ulrich von Hutten, a knight 
Hutten. like himself, but there was this difference 

between them, Hutten's pen was his lance. Placed 
like Erasmus in his youth in a cloister, he too had 
torn himself from it and taken to a literary life. Not so 
learned, but with even keener wit than Erasmus, neglect, 
poverty, and suffering had embittered more his wild war- 
like spirit. His pen was ever ready to be dipped in gall, 
and following the example set by Erasmus in his ' Praise 
His satire °f Folly,' he tried to mend the world by satire, 
upon Rome. He had been to Rome, and in Latin rhyming 
verses he held up her vices to scorn. He pointed out 
in these rhymes how German gold flowed into the coffers 
of the ' Simon of Rome.' He sneered at the blindness 
and weakness of the German nation in letting them- 
selves be the dupes of Rome. When Luther came upon 
the scene, Hutten's heart was stirred. He made his re- 
solve to rush into the fight against Rome. The fears and 
tears of his family could not stop him. He was disin- 
herited for doing it, but do it he must. Hitherto his 
rhymes had been in Latin, and thus only read by the 
learned. Henceforth he would write in German for the 
Fatherland. 

In Latin hitherto I've written, 

JopuSr rman A ton S ue a11 did not understand :— 

rhymes Now call I on the Fatherland, 

against The German nation, in her mother tongue, 

Rome. 4 , 4 ,. & 

To avenge these things. 

' Germany must abandon Rome. Liberty for ever ! 
The die is cast.' This was the cry of his popular German 
rhymes. 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 1 1 1 

To Luther he held out the hand of devoted friend- 
ship : — 

Servant of God, despair not ! 
Could I but give a helping hand, 
Or in these matters counsel thee, 
So would I spare nor goods 
Nor my own blood ! 

And on the eve of the Diet of Worms he issued his 
' Complaint and exhortation against the extravagant and 
tmchristian power of the Pope,' in rhyme, in which he 
exposed the tyranny, wealth, worldliness, and cost to Ger- 
many of Rome, and tried to lash up the German people 
into rebellion against it. Now was the time to free Ger- 
many from the Roman yoke. He appealed to the Emperor 
as the natural leader of the German nation. 
It would redound to his honour. He alone freedom 
should be the captain. All free Germans would from Rome - 
serve with gladness the saviour of their country. ' Help, 
' worthy king, unfurl the standard of the eagle, and we will 
' lift it high. If warnings will not do, there are steeds and 
' armour, halberts and swords, and we will use them ! ; 

There was something pathetic in this cry of the Ger- 
mans to their Emperor. The very peasants of the ' Bund- 
schnh' we saw would have made him their leader, had he 
listened to their appeal against their feudal oppressors, 
and now the German nation was beseeching him to head 
their rebellion against Rome ! These were but outbursts 
of a general yearning for unity among the German people. 
They felt the necessity of a central power as the only cure 
for the evils under which they suffered, and now when the 
quarrel of Luther with the Pope had brought ecclesias- 
tical grievances to the top, the question was whether 
Charles V., in his first Diet, would side with the German 
nation, or sell the German nation for his own selfish 
objects to the Pope ! 



112 The Protestant Revolution. PT . ii. 

Meanwhile appearances were ugly. Luther wrote to 
Spalatin : ' I expect you will return with the stale news 
that there is no hope in the court of Charles.' 
chances of Erasmus wrote : ' There is no hope in Charles ; 
reform. ^e j s surroun d e d by sophists and Papists.' But 

Hutten hoped against hope. Such men are sanguine. If 
Charles would but do his duty to Germany in the Diet of 
Worms, all might be well. If not, Hutten was ready for 
revolution. Sickingen had soldiers ; with the pen and the 
sword they would rise in rebellion. 



(b) The Diet of Worms meets i%th January 1521. 

Let us, for a moment, leave these wilder spirits and 
try to understand what it was that the more sober- 
minded of the German people expected from the Diet of 
Worms. 

Happily there is among English State papers a copy 
of ' Agenda/ or as it is headed, ' A memory 
the Diet of of divers matters to be provided in the present 
Worms. Diet of W orms.' 

The following are the chief, heads, and in these we 
cannot fail to recognize what in former chapters we have 
found to be the real grievances of the German nation. 

(1) To make some ordinance that no man without 
consent of the Emperor and Electors shall for any per- 
To stop pri- sonal cause presume to declare war as in 
vate war. times past. On this the cities and towns are 
determined to stick fast. 

(2) To settle certain disputes between various parties. 
To settle (There be above thirty bishops at variance 
disputes. with trie i r temporal lords for their jurisdiction.) 
Srt P ral Vide (3) Th e Emperor to provide a vicar and 
power in the council in his absence. If the Duke of Saxony 

Emperor's .,. . , • 

absence. will not take the charge, there will be great 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 113 

difficulty in finding one who will please the generality, for 
enmities are so numerous. 

(4) To take notice of the books and descriptions made 
by Friar Martin Luther against the Court of Rome. The 
which Friar Martin, of the Elector of Saxony Martin 
and other princes is much favoured. Luther. 

We have here a list of the chief grievances before 
noticed. (1) The evil of the constant private wars of the 
nobles, especially to the commerce of the towns. (2) The 
constant quarrels between the civil and ecclesiastical 
powers. (3) The want of a central government. (4) 
The Lutheran complaints against Rome. Only the 
grievances of the poor peasants find no voice ! Perhaps 
it was not likely they should. They had no friends at 
court. They had tried to make their voice heard sword 
in hand, and 'had not their rebellions been 
quelled and their standard of the Bund- f r\h°e Pe 
schuh trodden in the dust? Had not even P easantr y- 
Joss Fritz been lost sight of for years ? It was not their 
silent grievances, but the more noisy ones which were to 
be heard at the Diet. 

The Diet was opened by Charles V. on the 28th 
January 1521. 

The first business was the appointment of a Council 
of Regency to manage the affairs of the Empire during 
the Emperor's projected absence in Spain. Then came 
the establishment of an imperial chamber, and the 
granting of an impost or tax to defray the expenses of the 
government. 

These political matters were proceeding, when one day 
in February on which a tournament was to be held and 
the Emperor's banner was hoisted ready for B r ; e ff rom 
the lists, the princes were called together to Rome about 
hear read a brief just arrived from Rome. 
This brief exhorted the Emperor to add the force of law 
I 



1 14 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

to the Pope's Bull against Luther by an imperial edict. 
The Emperor had now an opportunity of showing that 
the unity of the Church was as dear to him as to the Em- 
perors of old. He wore the sword in vain if he did not 
use it against heretics, who were far worse than infi- 
dels. So urged the Pope. The Emperor had already 
had Luther's books burned in the Netherlands, and he 
now produced to the princes an edict commanding the 
rigorous execution of the Bull in Germany. He was evi- 
dently ready to yield to the wishes of the Pope, but it 
was needful to consult the Electors. Some of the Elec- 
tors were of course not prepared to accept the proposal 
The Electors °^ ^e Emperor. In order to persuade them, 
hesitate to Aleander, the papal nuncio, delivered at 
edict against another session of the Diet a speech nine 
Luther. hours in length, in which he inveighed against 

the heresies of Luther, urged that he should be condemned 
unheard, and declared that ' unless the heresy were 
stopped, Germany would be reduced to that frightful state 
of barbarism and desolation which the superstition of 
Mahomet had brought upon Asia.' The Electors seemed 
to be swayed by his eloquence. They cared little for 
Luther's doctrinal heresies, nay, they were willing to 
sacrifice the heretic if the grievances of the German 
nation against Rome could but be remedied. But these 
grievances were too real to be passed over so easily. 

The Diet, after further delay, appointed a committee 
to draw up a list of these grievances. Meanwhile the 
speech of Aleander had been reported to Hutten, who 
was staying, as we said, at the castle of Franz von 
, T , , Sickingen, a few miles from Worms. It 

Hutten ad- ° ' 

juresthe stirred his wrath to think of Luther's being 

to'yieki to ° condemned unheard. At once, on the spur of 
Rome. t^ moment, he dipped his pen in gall, and 

wrote letters of violent invective against the papal nuncio 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 115 

and the bishops assembled at Worms. One of them was 
addressed to the Emperor, declaring that the hope of 
Germany - had been that he would free her from the 
Romish yoke and put an end to the papal tyranny, and 
contrasting with these high hopes ' so great an Em- 
peror, the king of so many peoples, cringing willingly to 
slavery, without waiting even till he is forced/ 

' What ! ' he exclaimed, ' has Germany so ill deserved of thee that 
with thee, not fighting for thee, it must go to the ground ! Lead 
us into danger ! Lead us into battle and fire ! Let all nations unite 
against us, all peoples rush upon us, so that at least we may prove 
our courage in danger ! Don't let us, cringing and unmanly, without 
battle, lie down like women and become slaves !.' 

Such was the shrill cry of scorn which the course 
things were taking at Worms called forth from Hutten. 

When the list of grievances was brought in at a 
future sitting of the Diet, the debate was resumed. The 
complaints against Rome were so strongly put that they 
made a deep impression on the Diet. The Electors re- 
covered from the effects of the nuncio's speech. The 
Prince Electors who sided with Luther urged that ' it 
'would be iniquitous to condemn a man without hearing 
'him, and that the Emperor's dignity and piety were 
'engaged that, should Luther retract his errors, those 
i other matters should be recognised on which he had 
5 written so learnedly and Christianly, and that Germany 
\ should, by the authority of the Emperor, be freed from 
'the burdens and tyrannies of Rome.' They urged also 
the necessity of granting Luther a safe-conduct, and sum- 
moning him to appear before the Diet to defend himself. 

The Emperor gave way, and on March 6 the sum- 
mons and safe-conduct were issued, and an Luther 
imperial herald sent to bring Luther to ^J^mf 
Worms. 

1 2 



1 1 6 The Protestant Revolution. 



(c) Luther's journey to Worms (1521). 

The herald arrived at Wittenberg, and on April 2 
Luther set off for Worms. 

That he went with his mind fully made up not to give 
way or patch up his quarrel with the Pope was shown by 

Luther's t ^ lis ' ^- e ^ e ^ * n ^ e nan ^s of Lucas Cranach, 

Antithesis the great painter of Wittenberg, a series of 
and Anti- woodcuts prepared by Cranach, with explana- 
chnst. tions in German at the foot, added by him- 

self, depicting the Antithesis, or Contrast between Christ 
and the Pope. It was, in his own words, c a good book 
for the laity.' 

He and Hutten, to widen the circle of their readers, 
and make their appeals to the Fatherland heard by all 
classes, had scattered their pamphlets in German all 
over Germany. Luther now called in the aid of these 
woodcuts to make his appeal still more popular and 
telling on the multitude. 

Luther had found himself, to his own surprise, following 
in the track of the Hussites of Bohemia. He had openly 
avowed it. Indeed, he seems to have been fond of copying 
some of their acts, perhaps to mark the identity of his 
object with theirs. They had commenced with burning 
the Papal Bull, and so had Luther. It was recorded in 
the Hussite chronicles that one of the things which 
roused the people in Bohemia against the Pope was the 
painting by two Englishmen on the walls of an inn at 
Prague of two pictures, one representing Christ entering 
Jerusalem, meek and lowly, on an ass ; the other the 
Pope proudly mounted on horseback, glittering in purple 
and gold. Luther and Cranach had improved upon this 
example, and produced a series of woodcuts with a pre- 
cisely similar intention. 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 1 1 7 

Christ refusing a crown was contrasted with the Pope 
in his tiara. Christ in the crown of thorns, being beaten and 
mocked, was contrasted with the Pope on his throne, in all 
his magnificence. Christ washing the disciples' feet was 
contrasted with the Pope holding out his sacred toe to 
be reverently kissed by his courtiers. Christ healing the 
sick was contrasted with the Pope watching a tourna- 
ment. Christ bending under the burden of his Cross 
was contrasted with the Pope borne in state on men's 
shoulders. Christ driving the money-changers out of the 
temple was contrasted with the Pope selling his dispensa- 
tions, and with piles of money before him. Christ's 
humble entry into Jerusalem was contrasted with the 
Pope and his retinue in all their glory, but the road they 
are travelling is shown in the background of the picture 
to lead to hell. Finally, the Ascension of Christ is con- 
trasted with the descent of the Pope, in his triple crown 
and papal robes, headlong under an escort of demons 
and hobgoblins, into the flames of the bottomless pit. 

That he left behind him this ' good book for the laity,' 
to be published in his absence, was a mark of the defiant 
spirit in which he went to Worms. But underneath this 
spirit of defiance, it must never be forgotten, was a deep 
feeling that he was fighting in the cause of God. ' My 
dear brother,' he said to Melanchthon, in parting, ' if I 
do not come back, if my enemies put me to death, you 
will go on teaching and standing fast in the truth ; if 
you live, my death will matter little.' 

Amidst the tears of his friends, he stepped into the 
covered waggon and commenced his journey. Others, 
too, thought he was going out to his death. 
At one place which he passed there was a offfor rs£ 
priest who kept, hanging up in his study, a Worms « 
portrait of Savonarola. He took down the picture from 
the wall and held it up in silence before Luther. Luther 



1 1 8 The Protestant Revolution. 



PT. II. 



was moved. * Stand firm/ said the priest, ' in the truth 
thou hast proclaimed, and God will as firmly stand by 
thee.' The journey took him twelve days. 
lsjoumey. ^ ^^ ^ ^^ through Erfurt, the scene of 
his mental struggles. He spent a night at the old con- 
vent, and the next day, contrary to the terms of his safe- 
conduct, fearlessly preached in the little church of the 
convent to crowds of people. Earnest tender words 
were his that day, setting forth that true religion is a 
thing of the heart, and not of ceremonies or penances, 
moving multitudes to tears, and making converts. In 
the midst of it a portion of the crowded building gave 
way, and people were terrified by the crash. In his wild 
imagination he set it down to Satan trying to hinder him. 
All through his journey he seemed to meet with the 
Devil at every step. If he was fatigued and ill, it was 
Satan who brought him low ; but, he wrote from Frank- 
fort to Spalatin, ' Christ lives, and we will enter Worms 
in spite of all the gates of Hell and the powers of the 
air! J 

These things did but prove his sense of the import- 
ance of the work in which he was engaged. His wild 
enthusiasm grew out, of what was true heroism. The 
noise, the worship of the crowd, the danger and excite- 
ment, would have turned the head of any mere enthusiast. 
When men are excited they must needs do -strange 
things ; and of course on this journey to Worms strange 
things were done. At one place a parody on the Litany 
,was produced, like the parodies made by modern revolu- 
tionary agents : — ' Have mercy upon the Germans. 
1 From the tyranny of the Roman Pontiff deliver the Ger- 
' mans. From the insatiable avarice of the Romans deliver 
' the Germans. That Martin Luther, that upright pillar of 
' the Christian faith, may soon arrive at Worms, we be- 
' seech Thee to hear us. That the zealous German Knight, 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 119 

•' Ulrich Hutten, the defender of Martin Luther, may per- 
' severe in upholding Luther, we beseech Thee to hear 
i us/ and so on. Of course, wherever the procession 
stopped at night the inns were full ; there were crowds, 
vulgar merry-making, and music. Luther p opu lar 
himself played upon his flute, and doubtless, excitement. 
as his enemies reported, there was no lack of jollity over 
the beer. All this was in the very nature of things. The 
point to mark is this — it did not turn the head of Luther. 

When news of the enthusiasm occasioned by Luther's 
progress to Worms arrived at the city, the papal party 
became alarmed. Charles V. sent his private confessor 
with messages of compromise, but Luther refused to 
listen till he reached Worms. It was well he did, for the 
safe-conduct was nearly expired, and there was danger of 
treachery. Luther's friends, too, became alarmed. Even 
Spalatin was afraid of his life if he entered Worms, and 
reminded him of the fate of Huss, whose safe-conduct 
availed him little. Luther's noble reply was, ' Huss was 
burned, but not the truth with him.' He afterwards told 
the Elector of Saxony, when recalling to 
mind his own marvellous, courage, 'The heroic fh-m- 
*■ Devil saw in my heart that even had I known ness - 
■* that there would be as many devils at Worms as tiles 
i upon the house-roofs, still I should joyfully have plunged 
* in among them ! ' 

As he drew near the city, six knights and a troop of 
horsemen of the princes' retinues went out to meet him ; 
and under their escort, the Emperor's herald He enters 
leading the way, and a great crowd draggling Worms. 
through the streets beside him, in his covered waggon and 
monk's gown, Luther entered Worms. 



120 The Protestant -Revolution. ft. -ii. 

(d) Luther before the Diet (1521). 

The next day, towards evening, he was brought before 
the Diet. The Emperor presided. Six Electors were 
Luther's present, and a large number of archbishops, 

first ap- bishops, and nobility — about two hundred 

beforethe in all. There was a pile of Luther's books on 
Diet - the table. 

The official then formally put to Luther two ques- 
tions : 'Do you acknowledge these books to be yours ?' 
' Do you retract the heretical doctrines they contain ? ' 

Luther replied, ' I think the books are mine ; ' and, 
He asks for after the titles had been read over, ' Yes, the 
sideVhis 00 "" books are mine,' As to the second question, 
answer. he said it would be rash for him to reply 

before he had had time for reflection. 

The papal party, who had expected to find Luther 
raging like a lion, began to think he was going to give 
way. His deportment had been meek and modest. The 
The ive young Emperor turned to one of his courtiers 
him till the and said, ' This man will never make a heretic 
of me.' Luther's request for time was allowed 
till the next day, and on condition that he gave his reply 
viva voce. 

He was taken back to his inn. People did not know 
what to make of it. Some thought he would retract. 
But, in the. din and bustle around him, Luther wrote 
a letter to one of his friends. * I write to you from the 
' midst of the tumult. ... I confessed myself the author 
1 of my books, and said I would reply to-morrow touching 
* my recantation. With Christ's help, I shall never retract 
< one tittle f ' 

That night there was excitement and noise in the 
Excitement streets ; quarrels between opposing parties in 
in Worms. ^ e crow( j, and soldiers rushing about. 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 1 2 1 

The next day Luther prepared himself. He was heard 
to pray earnestly, and had his Bible open before him. In 
the afternoon the herald came to bring him before the Diet. 
The streets were full of people, and spectators looked 
down from the tops of the houses as the herald led him 
through passages and private ways to escape the crowd. It 
was dark before they reached the hall, and torches were 
lit. As Luther walked up the hall several noblemen met 
him with encouraging words, amongst whom was the old 
General Frundsberg, of whom we shall hear more hereafter. 

The hall was crowded, and some time was lost before 
the Princes and Electors were settled in their places. 

The official at length — two hours after Lut h er 's 

time — Opened the proceedings. second ap- 

pearance 
• Martin Luther, yesterday you acknowledged the before the 
books published in your name. Do you retract those 
books or not ? . . . Will you defend all your writings or disavow 
some of them ? ' 

Luther replied, in a speech which seemed to his 
enemies long and rambling ; but according to his own 
and Spalatin's version of it, the pith of what he said was 
this :— 

' Most serene Emperor ! Illustrious Princes, &c, — At the time 
fixed for me yesterday evening I am here, as in duty bound, and I 
pray God that your Imperial Majesty will be pleased 
to listen, as I hope graciously, to these matters of 7" t5 s 
justice and truth. And should I from inexperience 
omit to give to any one his proper titles, or offend against the 
etiquette, of courts, I trust you will pardon me, as one not used to 
them. 

' I beseech you to consider that my books are not all of the same 
kind. 

' (i) There are some in which I have so treated of faith and 
morals that even my opponents admit that they are worthy to be 
read by Christian people. If I were to retract these, what should I 
do but — I alone, among all men — condemn what friends and foes. 
alike hold to be truth ! 



122 The Protestant Revolution. ft. n. 

' (2) Others of my books are against the papacy and popish 
proceedings — against those whose doctrine and example have wasted 
and ruined Christendom, body and soul. This no one can gainsay, 
for the experience of all men, and the complaints of all, bear 
witness that through the laws of the Pope and the teaching of men 
the consciences of the faithful have been vexed and wronged, and the 
goods and possessions of this great German nation by faithless 
tyranny devoured and drained — yes, and will without end be 
devoured again ! .... Now if I were to retract these, I should 
do nothing but strengthen this tyranny. To its vast unchristian 
influence I should not only open the windows but the door also, 
so that it would rage and spoil more widely and freely than it has 
ever yet dared to do. Under cover of this my recantation, the 
yoke of its shameless wickedness would become utterly unbearable 
to the poor miserable people, and it would be thereby established 
and confirmed all the more if men could say that this had come 
about by the power and direction of your Imperial Majesty, and of 
the whole Roman Empire. Good heavens ! what a great cloak of 
wickedness and tyranny should I be ! 

' (3) The third kind are those books which I have written against 
some private persons, as, for instance, against those who have 
undertaken to defend the Roman tyranny, and to oppose what I 
thought to be the service of God, against whom I know I have been 
more vehement than is consistent with the character and position of 
a Christian. For I do not set myself up as holy. I do not, however, 
dispute for my own life, but the doctrine of Christ. I cannot 
retract even these books, but I am ready to listen to anyone who 
can show me wherein in these books I have erred. ' 

Here Luther paused. He had spoken in German 
with, as he thought, modesty, but with great fervour and 
determination. The perspiration stood on his brow, he 
was exhausted with the effort of speaking : but when the 
Emperor, who hardly understood German, ordered him 
to repeat what he had said in Latin, after whispering to a 
privy counsellor of the Elector of Saxony, who 
speech in stood by him, he obeyed, and repeated his 
Latin. words in the language which not only Charles 

but the papal nuncio could understand. 



en. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. I 2 3 

And now, as they understood more fully what he said, 
the anger of the papal party was naturally more kindled. 
When he had done, the orator of the Court, betraying his 
hostility by his manner, declared that Luther's answer 
was not a fair one. They were not there to dispute about 
things that had long ago been settled by Councils. He 
demanded a plain, ungarnished answer. Would he recant 
or not ? 

Luther replied : — 

' Well, then, if your Imperial Majesty requires a plain answer, 
I will give one without horns or teeth ! It is this ; that I must 
be convinced either by the testimony of the Scrip- 
tures or clear arguments. For I believe things ^^ eS t0 
contrary to the Pope and Councils, because it is as 
clear as day that they have often erred and said things incon- 
sistent with themselves. I am bound by the Scriptures which I 
have quoted ; my conscience is submissive to the word of God ; 
therefore I may not, and will not, recant, because to act against 
conscience is unholy and unsafe. So help me God ! Amen.' 

One other attempt was made to get him to yield, but in 
vain, and night coming on, the Diet was adjourned to the 
following morning, to hear the decision of the Emperor. 
The princes retired through the dark streets to their 
several inns ; Luther to his. Frederic of Saxony sent for 
Spalatin and expressed his approval of Luther's conduct, 
except that perhaps he had spoken too boldly. 

Next morning, the 19th April, the Emperor sent to the 
princes a message written by his own hand, in French, 
declaring his intention to proceed against The Empe- 
Luther as an avowed heretic, and calling ™ r a?nst des 
upon the princes to do the same. An attempt Luther, 
was then made by the papal party to induce the Em- 
peror to rescind the safe-conduct of Luther. The pre- 
cedent of Huss was cited. ' Why should not Luther, like 
Huss, be burned, and the Rhine receive the ashes of the 



1 24 J he Protestant Revolution. -ft. ii„ 

one as it had those of the other.' This proposal met with 
strong opposition from the princes, and was negatived. 

But while these discussions were going on in the Diet, 
murmurs were heard out of doors. The proposal to 
withdraw the safe-conduct roused the righteous indigna- 
Threats of tion of men like Hutten to the point almost of 
revolution. frenzy. A placard was found posted on the 
walls of the Town Hall, stating that 400 knights and 
8,000 foot were ready to defend Luther against the Ro- 
manists. It had no signature, but underneath were written 
the ominous words ' Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh? 
Rumours came of murmurs and movements of the people 
in distant parts of Germany. Franz von Sickingen, a few 
miles off the city, was said to be prepared to take to the 
sword, and the rumours of this inspired terror in the 
minds of the papal party, as it gave some colour of likeli- 
hood to the threats of Hutten and the placard. 

Under the influence of the fears thus excited, the 
The Electors Electors prevailed upon the Emperor to give 
urge delay. a f ew days more for a further attempt to shake 
Luther's firmness. 

All was done that could be done to shake it, but without 

avail. Luther's mind was made up. Let the Pope and 

the Emperor do their worst, he would stand by his 

conscience and the Scriptures. At last, on the 26th of 

April, he received orders from the Emperor to 

Luther , y . r ,, , _ 

leaves depart on the following day. Twenty-one 

Worms. days were given him for his return to Witten- 

berg, and on the morrow, escorted as before by the 
imperial herald, Luther left the crowded streets of Worms 
and commenced his journey homewards. 

He left Worms the hero of the German 

What 

Luther had nation. He single-handed had fought the 
Worms for battle of Germany against the Pope. He 
Germany had hazarded his life for the sake of the 



CH. IV. 



The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 125 



Fatherland. It was this which made Luther's name a 
household word with the Germans for ages to come. 
There is no name in the roll of German historic heroes 
so German, national, and typical as Luther's. 

But Luther fought a battle at Worms not only for 
Germany but Christendom — not only against the Pope, 
but against all powers, religious or secular, 

, ■ ° , ... ° . . , and for 

who seek to lay chains upon the human mmd christen- 
and to enthrall the free belief of the people. dom- 
Against the Emperor as well as the Pope, against all 
powers that be, he asserted the right of freedom of 
conscience. 

(e) Edict against Luther (1521). 

No sooner had Luther left Worms than the papal 
nuncio set himself to work to perfect his triumph. Luther 
had not recanted, therefore the Emperor must issue an 
edict against him. 

The threatenings of Hutten had at first made the 
papal party nervous. They thought that he and Sick- 
ingen had really ready a force of soldiers to Fears of the 
make good their threats. Everywhere the P a P al P art y- 
feeling of the German nation in favour of Luther and 
against the Pope was apparent, and nowhere more so 
than at Worms. They felt themselves on dangerous 
ground. 

Luther, a few days after leaving the city, wrote an 
address to the German princes, containing an account of 
the proceedings at the Diet. This was soon scattered 
over Germany by the printers, and, just as the minds of 
the Germans were thus excited in favour of Luther, the 
rumour spread from city to city, that in spite of his safe- 
conduct, Luther was captured and had been 
cruelly treated. Popular indignation was thus Luther? ° f 
roused ; murmurs arose against the Emperor ca P ture - 
among the princes as well as the common people. Again 



1 26 The Protestant Revolution. ft. ii. 

the papal party feared nothing less than a general riot 
against the Emperor and his ecclesiastical advisers, 
headed by Hutten and his friends. 

But at length news came that Luther was safe in 
friendly hands, having been secretly carried off to the 
castle of the Wartburg, in Thuringia, and kept there in 
safety by his own friends. As the days went by, the 
papal party gathering courage, began to laugh at Hutten's 
threats as bluster, and strained every nerve to hasten on 
the issue of the imperial edict against Luther. 

The Elector of Saxony saw the turn things were taking. 
He saw that Charles was won over by the Pope. He 
The Elector wrote to his brother that it was not only 
°e f ave's° ny ' Annas and Caiaphas, but Pilate and Herod 
Worms. also ' that had combined against Luther, and 

not caring to remain where he could do no good, he left 
Worms. 

In fact Aleander, the papal nuncio, had triumphed. 
On May 8 a treaty was signed between Charles V. and 
Treaty be- ^he P°P e > m which they mutually promised to 
tween have the same friends and the same enemies, 

Charles V. , _ . ...-.,,_, 

and the the Pope agreeing to side with the Emperor, 

Pope. anc j t0 exer {- a vj hi s powers to drive the French 

out of Milan and Genoa, and the Emperor, as the price for 
the Pope's alliance, promising to employ all his powers 
against Luther and his party. 

Aleander had triumphed, and accordingly prepared an 
edict against Luther. It required some cleverness to get 
The Edict the sanction of the Electors. The edict was 
against Lu- produced and read unexpectedly in the Em- 
ther. peror's own apartments to such of the Electors 

as remained in Worms, and received their hasty approval 
without discussion. The next morning, Sunday, as Charles 
V. was in church, Aleander brought the official copies, 
and then and there obtained the imperial signature. He 



CH. IV 



The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 127 



took care to date the edict on May 8, 1521, i.e. on the day 
when the treaty with the Pope was signed, though it was 
not really signed till some days after, and in the meantime 
the Elector of Saxony had left. 

The secretary of Charles V., Valdez, a friend of Eras- 
mus, writing from Worms on May 13, i52i,toa Spanish 
correspondent, concludes his letter with these remarkable 
words : 

' Here you have, as some imagine, the end of this tragedy, but I 
am persuaded it is not the end but the beginning of it. For I 
perceive the minds of the Germans are greatly exas- T . f 
perated against the Romish See, and they do not seem Valdez, the 
to attach much importance to the Emperor's edicts ; Emperor's 
for since their publication, Luther's books are sold with 
impunity at every step and corner of the streets and market-places. 
From this you will easily guess what will happen when the Emperor 
leaves. , 

' This evil might have been cured with the greatest advantage to 
the Christian Republic, had not the Pontiff refused a general 
council, had he preferred the public weal to his own private in- 
terests. But while he insists that Luther shall be condemned and 
burned, I see the whole Christian Republic hurried to destruction 
unless God himself help us. Farewell.' 

The secretary of Charles V. naturally laid all the 
blame on the Pope. He little knew how much his master 
also was to blame. The Elector of Saxony was not far 
wrong when he hinted that if the Pope and his nuncios 
were acting the part of Annas and Caiaphas, Charles V. 
was acting the part of Pilate and Herod. 

Let .us try to unravel the entangled skein of political 
motives which influenced his conduct and his treaty with 
the Pope. 

(/) Political reasons for the decision at Worms. 

We have seen how the great continental struggle had 
long been between France and Spain, and how Italy was 



128 The Protestant Revolution. pt.-ii. 

the battle-field ; how both claimed Naples and Milan ; 
how France had been the first to invade Italy ; how 
Rivalship France and Spain at one time agreed to share 
StSn and Naples between them ; how France got Milan, 
France. and then, after the two had quarrelled over the 

prey, Spain got Naples ; how then they had joined again 
with the Pope and Germany in the league of Cambray 
against Venice ; and how, lastly, the robbers quarrelling 
again over the spoil, the Pope united Spain, Germany, 
and England with himself in a holy league to drive France 
out of Italy, and so France again lost Milan. Then 
came the succession of young Francis I. to the throne 
of France, his boast that he would make France the 
first power in Europe, as she was wont to be, his brilliant 
campaign of 15 15 in. which he gained the battle of 
Marignano, and recovered Milan. Then came the struggle 
for the Empire, and the beginning of the ascendancy of 
Spain in Europe by Charles V.'s accession to the German 
throne. 

In the political combinations which followed, it was 
the fate of Francis to be left out in the cold. Leo X. 
Intrigues of was anx i° us to league himself in close al- 
princes. liance with Charles V., and by his aid to drive 

France the the French out of Italy. Henry VIII. was 

common > J J 

enemy of the also exceedingly anxious to form a close al- 
and e Eng- m ' liance with Charles V. His marriage with 
land. Charles's aunt, Catherine of Arragon, was 

already a link between England and Spain. Henry 
wanted to bring about another by a contract of marriage 
between Charles V. and the young Princess (afterwards 
queen) Mary, although she was already engaged to the 
Dauphin of France. Charles V., in his turn, was equally 
anxious to form such alliances as would strengthen his 
position against France. He was jealous of the conquests 
of Francis I. in Italy, and as Emperor of Germany con- 



ch. iv. The Crisis — Reform or Revolution. 129 

sidered himself entitled to Milan, which Francis had con- 
quered. An alliance, therefore, with the Pope and Eng- 
land against France was most to his purpose, but it did 
not suit his purpose that Henry VIII. should know it. 

All the princes were playing a double game and 
trying to outwit one another. Henry coquetted with 
Francis in order to make Charles fall in with his wishes 
out of jealousy. Charles was coquetting both with France 
and England, proposing marriage with a French princess 
while he was negotiating with Henry respecting the 
Princess Mary, and worst of all, while he really intended 
to marry the Infanta of Portugal. He cared far more for 
Spain than he did for Germany, and by this match he 
hoped to unite some day Portugal and Spain. Henry 
VIII. devised an interview with Francis. Charles was 
jealous and came over to England. After this meeting 
with Charles Henry embarked for France, and met Francis 
on what, from the grandeur of the preparations, was 
called the ' Field of the Cloth of Gold.' Immediately 
afterwards he again met Charles at Gravelines, and did 
his best to secure his object with Charles while he kept 
Francis in the dark. But Charles chose a little longer to 
play fast and loose. 

In the meantime the Pope also was playing a double 
game. Whether to ally himself with Francis, who was 
preparing his army for another descent upon Italy, or with 
Charles V. and Henry VIII. against Francis, he kept an 
open question, though his preference was for the latter 
plan, if only he could bring Charles V. to his terms ; the 
chief of them being that Charles should help him to put 
down the heretic Luther. 

The course which things took at the Diet of Worms 
was ruled by these political intrigues. 

The papal party triumphed'. The Emperor, as we 
K 



130 The Protestant Revolution. 



pt. ir. 



have seen, concluded an alliance on May 8 with the Pope 
against France and against Luther. 

The consequence was that Europe was to be given 

over once more to the ambitions and wars of its rival 

princes. All chances of reform, for the pre- 

Reform re- _,,_.._ T TT 

fused by sent, were gone. The Diet of Worms came 

p'owSsfrom to an en< ^ without having accomplished the 
political work which Germany expected from it. Worst 

of all, the Emperor, instead of siding with 
Germany against the Pope, had chosen for his private 
purposes to side with the Pope against Germany. 

It is true a council of regency had been established, 
with the Elector of Saxony at its head, to manage the 
affairs of the Empire while the Emperor was busied with 
quelling a rebellion in Spain, and with his wars in Italy. 
But no decisive steps had been taken to stop those private 
wars which were the curse of Germany, and of which the 
cities so bitterly complained. No decisive steps had been 
taken to remedy the ecclesiastical grievances of which the 
princes complained. The grievances of the much endur- 
ing peasantry had not even been talked of. And as the 
worst sign of the times, Luther had been condemned by 
both Pope and Emperor. 

The fears of Erasmus were fulfilled, and his bitter 
words justified by the result. ' Ecclesiastical hypocrites 
reign in the courts of princes . . . The Pope and Princes 
treat the people as cattle in the market/ 

The reform, both of the Oxford and of the Wittenberg 
Reformers, had been refused by the ruling powers. There 
was nothing left but revolution. 



Revolution. 13 j 



CHAPTER V. 

REVOLUTION. 

(a) The Prophets of Revolution (1522). 
The edict of the Emperor issued at the Diet of Worms 
was published all over Germany. But the papal party 
were astonished to find how very little people 
thought of it. The Germans thought a great g*Sk!f 
deal more of the bold conduct of Luther. the E&dict - 1 
So that the end of it was that the edict was treated with 
very much the same neglect as the Pope's Bull. Luther's 
books were burned in some places under the eye of the 
Emperor. Everywhere else they were read all the more 
And another thing happened which the papal party 
had not foreseen. They had for the moment silenced 
Luther. He was safe in the castle of the 
Wartburg, and silent, too, albeit he was hard JSSJ* 
at work at what would do more to spread the hnr s- 
spirit of reform than anything else, viz. translating the 
Bible into the mother tongue of the Fatherland. 

Meanwhile the absence of Luther from his wonted 
place at Wittenberg did not take away the firebrand as 
they thought it would, but put it in the hands 
of the mob. In Luther's absence wilder In Wsab- 
spirits came to the top. Monks left the con- 5S5& 
vents and went to trades. Under the leader- the lead 
ship of Carlstadt, the form of public worship was changed 
Excited and half-crazy men, carried away by their zeal 
set themselves up as propliets and preached strange doc- 
trines. 

At Zwickau, under the range of the Erzgebirge, south 
of Wittenberg, near Bohemia, lived a weaver of the 

K 2 



132 The Protestant Revolution. ft.il 

name of Clans S torch. He and some of his comrades 
fancied that they were inspired. They mistook their own 
excited imaginations for messages from 
phe^of" heaven. They wanted no priests, for they 
Zwickau. w6re themselves prophets, no Bible, for they 
were themselves inspired, and they went about preaching 
violent changes, and exciting the crowds who listened to 
them to violent deeds. 

Driven away from Zwickau by the authorities, some of 
them came to Wittenberg, where the people were already 
making great changes under the leadership of Carlstadt. 
Carlstadt was carried away by their zeal, and so were the 
people. Riots were raised. People went about smashing 
the images in the churches, and even Melanchthon, in 
Luther's absence, was half inclined to believe in the pro- 
phets, though they preached the uselessness of learning 
and universities, 

These things came to the ear of Luther in his retreat at 
the Wartburg. He at once saw how all this delusion and 
Luther madness would injure the cause of the Refor- 

to wfuJr? mation - At the risk of his life he left his 
berg, place of concealment. He suddenly appeared 

at Wittenberg in his old pulpit. He entreated his old 
flock to calm their excitement; and not without avail. 
After ten months' absence, the familiar sound of his 
voice soothed their passions. They recognized him once 
more as their leader. 

The prophets came to visit him — and this is a proof 
of their sincerity — expecting him at once to admit their 
and con- claims. Luther did not doubt that they were 

fronts the inspired, but warned them lest their inspira- 
tion should come from Spirits of Evil. One 
of them, with the voice and tones of an enthusiast, stamp- 
ing his feet, and striking his hands on the table, gave 
vent to his horror at the suggestion ; and then, gathering 



ch. v. Revolution. 133 

up his dignity, in a tone which almost shook the common 
sense of Luther, said, solemnly, ' That thou mayst know, 
O Luther, that I am inspired by the Spirit of God, I will 
tell thee what is passing in thy mind.' And then as 
Luther, really for the moment half carried away by his 
impressive manner, was beginning to waver, ' It is ' (he 
added), c that thou art ready to think that my doctrine is 
true.' To which Luther, suddenly recovering His com _ 
himself, replied, ' The Lord rebuke thee, mon sense 
Satan ! The God whom I worship will soon pievai s ' 
put a stop to your Spirits.' And with these parting 
words he dismissed the prophets of Zwickau. 

Order was restored at Wittenberg. The Scriptures 
were again acknowledged as the rule of faith, and before 
the end of the year the New Testament The prophets 
was published in the German tongue. The driven from 
Lutheran Reformation was severed for ever 
from the wilder reforms of Carlstadt and the prophets of 
Zwickau ; and the latter were soon driven from Witten- 
berg, to spread their doctrines in other places where there 
was no Luther to withstand them. 

One of the disciples of Storch at Zwickau was 
Miinzer, but instead of going to Wittenberg, Mimzer 
he went first into Bohemia, and then all over becomes the 
that part of Germany where Joss Fritz had of the 
been. He became very soon the prophet of P easantr T- 
the peasantry. 

We must look even upon Miinzer as honest and 
sincerej though wild. He thought himself inspired, and 
preached like a prophet. Along with many reforms which 
Luther also urged, he claimed for the people the right of 
having divine worship performed in their own language 
instead of in the Latin of the priests. He preached a 
crusade against all who opposed the gospel, and urged a 
resort to the sword if preaching would not do. Driven 



1 34 The Protestant Revolution. PT . ii. 

from city to city, he went more and more among the 
peasants ; and who shall blame him if he took up their 
grievances ? Was it not natural ? His own father, it is 
said, had fallen a victim to a quarrel with his feudal lord. 
He began to think himself the chosen messenger of 
heaven to avenge their wrongs ; and as he preached 
from place to place amongst the peasantry, and others 
like him followed in his track, it was not strange if it 
stirred up again in the minds of the disciples of Joss 
Fritz recollections of the days of the Bundschuh. 

(b) The end of Sickingen and Hutten (1523). 

The council of regency appointed at the Diet of 
Worms to represent the Empire during the Emperor's 
absence in Spain (whither he had gone to quell a rebellion 
of his subjects) was made up of princes who had more or 
less sympathy with Luther. 

Frederic of Saxony was at the head of it. It was the 
nearest approach to a central government which had 
™ ~ ., been formed. It was thoroughly German 

The Council , . . . . . . .. , , 

of Regency and national m spirit, and aimed at thoroughly 
Sectorof national objects. It aimed not at carrying 
Saxony ou t the edict against Luther, but at obtaining 

avert the from future diets those reforms which had 
storm, been refused at Worms. It aimed at putting 

down private wars and the establishment of public peace. 

But it had no power at its back to carry out its in- 
tentions. Its efforts to obtain something like union 
among the powers of Germany in the work of reform 
were fruitless ; and so were its efforts to put down pri- 
vate wars. 

Knights like Franz von Sickingen saw in it an attempt 
of the princes to put down the influence of their order. 
Its attempt to obtain the means to pay for national ob- 



ch. v. Revolution. 135 

jects by a system of customs — duties on luxuries imported 
into Germany from abroad — was taken by , 

, n . , , . but meets 

the merchants of the towns to be an m- withoppo- 
vasion of their rights. So it was unpopular sltlon- 
and powerless, though its intentions were good. 

Its powerlessness to preserve the public peace was 
soon shown in a great private war which was waged by 
Franz von Sickingen in 1522-3 against the Franz von 
Archbishop of Treves. The knight besieged f k kinffe ]i 
Treves with his army of 5,000 foot-soldiers sword, 
and 1,500 knights, and declared that he came to bring 
the people freedom from the Pope and priests, and to 
punish the archbishop for his sins against God and the 
Emperor. 

What could be a stronger example to the peasantry 
to take to tfre sword than such an act of the popular 
knight ! 

He counted upon the people of the town aiding him 
from within the walls, but was disappointed. The city 
held out till some neighbouring princes came to its rescue 
with an army of 30,000 men. On their approach Franz 
retired to his castle of Landshut, there not being time to 
reach that of Ebernburg. There he was himself besieged. 
The cannon of the princes were powerful enough to batter 
down the solid walls, which before the use of artillery 
would have been impregnable. He held out , 

/- 1 .,1 i ■ , r -,-, • but is de- 

for months, till at last a solid tower fell into featedand 
a heap of ruins, and a breach was made in kllled - 
the walls. Franz himself was wounded and dying when 
his conquerors entered the castle. They upbraided him 
for disturbing the peace of the Empire. ' I am going/ he 
said, as he lay upon the floor, dying, ' to render H utten's 
an account to a greater than the Emperor ; ' death. 
and soon after he expired. His friend Hutten died in 
the same year, while trying to urge other knights to aid 



136 The Protestant Revolution. pt. 11. 

Sickingen, and this was the end of the knights of Ebern- 
burg Castle. 

They had threatened to reform the Empire by the 
sword. The peasantry had looked to them as their best 
knightly friends. They had done much by their pens 
and swords, their voice and example, to stir up warlike 
The ea- feeling- among the peasantry, but their end 
santrygot came before the peasants had got any help 
from^he from them. In the meantime it was also clear 
kmghts. tnat tne C0linc ii f regency was unable to pre- 
serve the public peace, as well as to bring about the 
needed reform. 

If help was to come neither from the Emperor and 
the council of regency, nor from the knights, where 
were the peasantry to turn next ? Was not the time ripe 
for rebellion ? 

{c) The Peasants' War (1525). 

We must turn again to the map on which are marked 
the districts where lay the smouldering embers of the 
BundscJmh, waiting only for the match to light them up 
again. On the opposite map are marked the districts in 
which, one after another, the explosions came. The con- 
nexion between the two maps will be seen at a glance. 
Joss Fritz had kept the embers alive by his secret work in 
Swabia. The expulsion of Carlstadt from Wittenberg 
had sent him into the towns on the Rhine and in Franconia 
to stir up discontent and a spirit of rebellion, not only 
against Rome, the priests and monks, but also against 
Carlstadt Luther, through whose influence he had been 
and Miinzer expelled. Miinzer had been driven from 

stir up r 

rebellion. city to city, and thence into southern Ger- 

many, to carry on the work of stirring up rebellion. 

The train was indeed laid, and in November 1524 
the match was put to it in the very places where it 



ch. v. Revolution. 137 

was laid the deepest. The match was a little thing. The 
much-enduring peasantry of Swabia, and most of all, 
those about the Boden See (Lake Constance) needed but 
the last straw to break the back of their endurance. It 
was a holiday, and the peasants on the estates of the 
Count von Liipfen were resting at home or taking the day 
for work on their own land. Orders came from the 
Count that, they should turn out and gather insurrection 
snail-shells for the folk at the Castle. It was gantry in 
the very littleness of the thing which made it Swabia. 
so unbearable. They rose up in arms, and so did their 
neighbours in the valleys round. Soon all Swabia was in 
insurrection. 

The council of regency sent ambassadors to mediate 
between the peasants and their lords of the Swabian 
•League. But, it was of no use. They had not power to 
keep the public peace. Neither party listened to them. 
The peasants put forth twelve articles in which they 
stated their demands. Here, in brief, is a list of them. A 
mere glance will show that they were the old demands of 
the days of the Bundschuk, with a few additions. 

1. The right to choose their own pastors. 

2. They would pay tithe of corn, out of which the pastors 

should be paid, the rest going to the use of the 
parish. — But small tithes, i.e., of the Their twelve 
produce of animals, every tenth calf, or articles, 
pig, or egg, and so on, they would not pay. 

3. They would be free, and no longer serfs and bondmen. 

4. Wild game and fish to be free to all. 

5. Woods and forests to belong to all for fuel. 

0. No services of labour to be more than were required 
of their forefathers. 

7. If more service required, wages must be paid for it. 

8. Rent, when above the value of the land, to be properly 

valued and lowered. 



138 The Protestant Revolution. pt.il 

9. Punishments for crimes to be fixed. 

10, Common land to be again given up to common use. 

11. Death gifts {i.e., the right of the lord to take the best 

chattel of the deceased tenant) to be done away 

with. ' 
I2„ Any of these articles proved to be contrary to the 

Scriptures or God's justice, to be null and void. 
From this list of most substantial grievances we may 
well gather what the peasants were aiming at. We see 
Not likely to h° w ^y aime d, like simple men, at the re- 
be granted by moval of the practical grievances and hard- 

either Pope, . -..,.. _ ° , . 

nobles, or ships of their life. But their demands were 
Luther. nQt at ^\ likely to be granted. For instance, 

if they had the choice of pastors they would choose men 
like Miinzer, and Carlstadt, and Storch, and perhaps 
even wilder spirits than these, so that neither the Pope 
nor Luther would be likely to concede that demand. 
Nor, of course, would the proud feudal lords like to lose 
their game and the forced labour of their serfs, and to 
meet their peasants on equal terms as free men, any more 
than the slave-holders of America liked to have slavery 
abolished. We may guess, too, how the ecclesiastics 
would tremble to hear of their small tithes being taken 
away, and other pastors being chosen instead of 
themselves. 

Had the feudal lords granted proper and fair reform's 
long ago, they would never have heard of these twelve 
articles. But they had refused reform, and they now had 
to meet revolution. And they knew of but one way of 
meeting it, namely, by the sword. 

The lords of the Swabian League sent their army of 
Swabian f°°t and horsemen under their captain, George 

peasants Truchsess. The poor peasants could not hold 

crushed in r r 

April 1525. out against trained soldiers and cavalry. Two 
battles on the Danube, in which thousands of peasants 



ch. v. Revolution. 139 

were slain, or drowned in the river, and a third equally 
bloody one in Algau, near the Boden See, crushed this 
rebellion in Swabia, as former rebellions had so often 
been crushed before. This was early in April 1525. 

But in the meantime the revolution had spread further 
north. In the valley of the Neckar a body of 6,000 
peasants had come together, enraged by the news of the 
slaughter of their fellow peasants in the south of Swabia. 
The young Count von Helfenstein, a friend of the Arch- 
duke Ferdinand, who had married a natural daughter of 
the late Emperor Maximilian, lived at the castle in the 
town of Weinsberg, in this district. He seems to have so 
far lost his head in these days of terror as to have cut the 
throats of some peasants who met him on the road. This 
enraged them the more. The town and castle were 
stormed and taken by the peasants, under their i nsurrec tion 
leaders, Florian Geyer, Wendel Hipler, and on the 

Neckar 

Little Jack Rohrbach. The Count offered a April 
large sum of money for a ransom, but the IS2S- 
stern reply of the peasants was, ' he must die though he 
were made of gold.' 

While the peasants were plundering the castle, the 
monastery, and the houses of the priests, the leaders held 
a council. .Hipler advised moderation. He hoped that 
the smaller lords would, after all, side with the peasants. 
But Little jack was a man of another kind. In the dead 
of night he held a council of his own, and doomed every 
knight and noble in Weinsberg to immediate death. As 
day was breaking the Count and other noble prisoners were 
led forth, surrounded by a circle of pikes with their steel 
points inward. The tears and pleadings of the Countess, 
with her babe in her arms, availed nothing. The peasants 
stood in two opposite ranks, with a passage between the 
points of their pikes. A piper of the Count mockingly 
led the way, inviting his late master to follow on a dance 



140 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

of death. The Count and nobles were compelled to 
follow. The ranks closed upon them, and they were soon 
pierced to death. A wild peasant woman stuck her knife 
into the Count's body, and smeared herself with blood. 
And so, unknown to the other leaders and to the masses 
The of the peasantry, ' Little Jack,' on that terrible 

peasants' morning, had revenged the thousands of his 

Swabian comrades slain by the Swabian lords, blood 

slaughters. for blood> 

A yell of horror was raised through Germany at the 
news of the peasants' revenge. No yell had risen when 
the Count cut peasants' throats, or the Swabian lords slew 
thousands of peasant rebels. Europe had not yet learned 
to mete out the same measure of justice to noble and 
common blood. But the eye of history cannot so be 
blinded. It records that about a month after, Truchsess, 
The retalia- the captain of the Swabian League, came 
nobles^ May nortn wards, and fell upon this band of pea- 
1525- sants with his more disciplined soldiers and 

horsemen. One night, after a bloody battle, in which 
several thousand peasants were slain, the piper of 
Weinsberg was recognized amongst the prisoners — he 
who had piped to the dance of death at the murder of the 
Count von Helfenstein. Truchsess and the new Count 
von Helfenstein, who was with him, had him fastened 
with an iron chain about two feet long to an apple tree. 
With their own hands they and other nobles helped to . 
build up a circular pile of wood round their victim, and 
then they set fire to the pile. It was night ; and amid 
the groans of wounded and dying peasants on the battle- 
field around them, and the drunken revelry of the camp, 
was heard the laughter of these nobles as they watched 
their victim springing shrieking from point to point of the 
fiery circle within which he was slowly roasted to death. 
Such was the revenge of nobles upon peasants. 



ch. v. ■ Revolution. 141 

But the revolution spread, and the reign of terror 
spread with it. North and east of the valley of the 
Neckar, among the little towns of Franconia, x 

1 • i - n r 1 n/r • 1 1 i Insurrection 

and m the valleys of the Maine, other bands in Fran- 
of peasants, mustering by thousands, destroyed conia " 
alike cloisters and castles. Two hundred of these lighted 
the night with their flames during the few weeks of their 
temporary triumph. And here another feature of the 
revolution became prominent. The little towns were 
already, under the preaching of Carlstadt and such as 
he, passing through an internal revolution. The artisans 
were rising against the wealthier burghers, Revolution 
overturning the town councils, and electing |J jrj![^ 0wns 
committees of artisans in their place, making conia. 
sudden changes in religion, putting down the Mass, un- 
frocking priests and monks, and in fact, in the interests 
of what they thought to be the gospel, turning all things 
upside down. 

A few extracts from the jdiary of a citizen of the free 
imperial fortified town of Rothenburg, on the Tauber, 
may serve to fix on the mind a clear impression of the 
Peasants' War, as it seemed to a citizen of a Franconian 
town during the course of the events which he noted in 
his log-book in this terrible year 1525. 

March 19. — The Carlstadt sect being favoured by -q- , 
the magistrates, Carlstadt himself came to Rothen- citizen of 
burg, preached here, and wanted to become a citizen. Rothenburg. 

March 21. — Thirty or forty peasants bought a kettle-drum 
and went about proudly, insolently, and mischievously, up and 
down the city. 

March 23. — About 400 peasants assembled. 

March 24. — All citizens were called to the Rathhaus and enjoined 
to stand by the honourable council. Only twenty-six do so ! The 
rest elect a committee of thirty-six. Messengers are sent to the 
peasants to inquire their plans. The peasants replied that they were 
not all collected yet. Letters come from Markgraf Casimir, and 



142 The Protestant Revolution. pt. 11. 

are read to the people, offering help, and to come in person to make 
peace. Some of the people treated the message with scorn and 
laughter. 

This evening, between five and six, the head of the image of 
Christ on the Cross is struck off, the arms broken and the pieces 
knocked about the churchyard. 

March 25. — The committee of thirty- six frighten the council 
into submission. 

March 26, Sunday. — The priest driven from the altar and his 
mass book thrown down. The peasants deploy themselves before 
the Galgen-thor. 

March 27. — The priest insulted, and his book thrown down 
whilst performing mass. 

March 28. — 700 peasants assembled, and force other peasants to 
join them. 

March 31. — The peasants have increased to 2,000. Lcrenz 
Knobloch having promised to be a captain, has gone out to them. 
Messengers from the Imperial Council came to make peace, but 
without result. 

April 4. — The oil lamps thrown down during the sermon. The 
peasants go about plundering cupboards and cellars. 

April 8, Good Friday. — The service done away. No one sang 
or read. But Dr. Drechsel preached against emperor, king, princes 
and lords, spiritual and temporal, for hindering the word of God. 

April 10, Easter Day. — Hans Rothfuchs called the sacrament 
idolatry. No service. 

April 11. — Dr. Carlstadt preached against the sacrament. At 
night the Kupferzell (cloister) sacked by some millers, and tables 
and pictures thrown into the Tauber. 

April 12. — Declarations made that priests may marry. 

April 13. — Dr. Carlstadt preached again against the sacraments 
and ceremonies. 

April 14. — Some women run up and down the streets with forks, 
pikes, and sticks, making a row and declaring that they will plunder 
all priests' houses. 

April 15. — Priests are obliged to become citizens for safety. 
Every citizen to give a gulden towards the watch, also take his turn 
at working at the fortifications. 

April 18. — The peasants demand 200 men and 100 long spears, 
a culverin, heavy field-pieces, and two tents. They are refused. The 



ch. v. Revolution. 



H3 



peasants reply that some citizens had promised help ; therefore they 
now demand it. 

April 23.— The peasants are told they shall have a reply in 
writing. 

April qS,.— Corn given out, but only some take it. Knobloch 
torn to pieces by the peasants, and they pelted one another with the 
pieces. The peasants have been heard to say that they would soon 
see what the Rothenburgers were going to do ! 

May 1.— In the night they burned the cloister of E., plundered 
another, and burned the castle of C. 

May 8.— The people called together by the great bell in the 
parish church to hear a proposal of the Markgraf Casimir to come 
with his- lady and jewels to Rothenburg ; and on the other hand to 
consider whether to send to the peasantry or not. 

May 10. — Three neighbouring cities have gone over to the pea- 
sants. They want Rothenburg to join them, too. At 6 o'clock 
people are called together again, and the majority decide to send 
artillery and spears to the peasants. 

May 12.— More monasteries are sacked. Twelve kilderkins of 
wine plundered by the people and drunk. 

May 15.— Florian Geyer (one of the peasants' leaders) in the 
parish church proposes articles of alliance with the peasants for 101 
years. Demanded that the committee and people should by oath 
and vow league themselves with the peasants. Which was done, 
although againsi the grain to some. Thus to-day Rothenburg has 
gone over from the Empire to the peasants ! A gallows was erected 
in the market-place in foken of this brotherhood, and as a terror to 
evil-doers. About 5 o'clock tents, waggons, powder are got ready 
and taken to the camp of the peasants, with intent to storm the castle 
of Wiirtzburg. 

300 peasants who went up on May 9 to storm the castle of 
Wiirtzburg were all killed, part by the stones, part shot, part slain 
—taken like birds ! (So the castle still held out.) 

Casimir of Brandenburg is marching with forces to chastise the 
peasants. 

May 19. — He burns four towns. Four peasants at L. are 
beheaded and seven have their fingers cut off, At N. eighteen 
citizens beheaded. 

May 27.-4,000 peasants are slain in the valley of the Tauber by 
the allied powers. (The combined forces of the nobles were now 



144 The Protestant Revolution. pt. ii. 

joined by Truchsess, who had been victorious over the Swabian pea- 
sants.) 

May 29. — 8,000 more peasants slain by the allies. Three mes- 
sengers are sent from Rothenburg to Markgraf Casimir, carrying a 
red cross and fervently begging for mercy. No surrender would be 
accepted but on 'mercy or no mercy.' All citizens, clergy and 
laity, to pay seven florins for Blood and Fire Money, or to be 
banished thirty miles out of the city. The city to provide some tons 
of powder. 

June 2. — Wiirtzburg retaken by the Bund. 

June 24. — Mass said again, after thirteen weeks' interruption. 

June 29. — Markgraf Casimir came to Rothenburg with 800 
hOrse, 1,000 foot, 200 waggons well equipped with the best artillery, 
which are placed in the market-place. 

June 30.— All citizens called by herald and ordered to assemble 
in the market-place, and form a circle under guard of soldiers with 
spears. It was announced that the Rothenburgers had revolted 
from the Empire and joined the peasants, and had forfeited life, 
honour, and goods. The Markgraf and many nobles were present. 
Twelve citizens were called out by name, and beheaded on the spot. 
Their bodies were left all day in the market-place. Several had 
fled who otherwise would have been beheaded. 

July 1. — Eight more beheaded. 

It was during the Franconian rebellion that the pea- 
sants chose the robber knight Goetz von Berlichingen as 
their leader. It did them no good. More than a robber 
chief was needed to cope with soldiers used to war. The 
failure of the Franconian rebel peasants was inevitable, 
and the wild vigour with which they acted in the moments 
of their brief power did but add to the cruelty with which 
they were crushed and punished when the tide of victory 
turned against them. 

insurrection While all this was going on in the valleys 

inEisassand of the Maine, the revolution had crossed the 
down, May Rhine into Elsass and Lothringen, and the 
I525, Palatinate about Spires and Worms, and in 



Revolution. 



145 



the month of May had been crushed in blood, as in Swabia 
and Franconia. South and east, in Bavaria, an d in Ba- 
in the Tyrol, and in Carinthia also, castles and £ aria ? *" 

. - . _ ' Tyrol, and 

monasteries went up in flames, and then, when Carinthia. 
the tide of victory turned, the burning houses and farms of 
the peasants lit up the night and their blood flowed freely. 
Meanwhile Miinzer, who had done so much to stir up 
the peasantry in the south to rebel, had gone north into 
Thuringia, and headed a revolution in the Miinzer 
town of Muhlhausen and became a sort of heads an in . _ 
Savonarola of a madder kind, believing him- Thuringia. 
self inspired, talking of his visions, uttering prophecies, 
denouncing vengeance on all who opposed what he be- 
lieved to be the gospel. He exercised over the citizens 
something of the influence that Savonarola had done in 
Florence, His, intense earnestness carried them away. 
They could not help believing in him and regarding him 
with awe. For a while the rich fed the poor, and under 
his eye there was almost a community of goods. But 
Miinzer, not content with visions and his prophetic office, 
madly appealed to the sword. When he heard of the re- 
volution in Swabia he seemed to sniff the breeze like a 
war-horse. He issued a proclamation to the peasantry 
round about. 

Arise ! fight the battle of the Lord ! On ! on ! on ! Now is the 
time ; the wicked tremble when they hear of you. Be pitiless ! 
Heed not the groans of the impious ! Rouse up the H; d 
towns and villages ; above all, rouse up the miners of proclama- 
the mountains ! On ! on ! on ! while the fire is burn- tion - 
ing; on while the hot sword is yet reeking with the slaughter! 
Give the fire no time to go out, the sword no time to cool ! Kill all 
the proud ones : while one of them lives you will not be free from 
the fear of man ! While they reign over you it is no use to talk of 
God ! . . . Amen. 

Given at Muhlhausen, 1525. Thomas Miinzer, servant of God 
against the wicked. 

L 



146 The Protestant Revolution. pt. rr. 

These were some of the words which were meant to 
wake up echoes in the hearts of the neighbouring miners 
of Mansfeld, among whom the kindred of Luther 
dwelt ! 

This was what had come of the prophets of Zwickau 
giving up their common sense and following visions and 
inspirations ! 

But the end was coming. The princes, with their 
disciplined troops, came nearer and nearer. What could 
Miinzer do with his 8,000 peasants ? He pointed to a 
rainbow and expected a miracle, but no miracle came. 
The battle, of course, was lost. 5,000 peasants lay dead 
upon the field near the little town of Frankenhausen, 
where it was fought. 

Miinzer fled and concealed himself in a bed, but was 
Death of found and taken before the princes, thrust 
Miinzer. } nt0 a dungeon, and afterwards beheaded. 

So ended the wild career of this misguided, fanatical, 
self-deceived, but yet, as we must think, earnest and in 
many ways heroic spirit. We may well believe that he 
was maddened by the wrongs of the peasantry into what 
Luther called a ( spirit of confusion.' 

The princes and nobles now everywhere prevailed 
over the insurgent peasants. 

Luther, writing on June 21, 1525, says : — 

' It is a certain fact, that in Franconia 11,000 peasants have been 
slain. Markgraf Casimir is cruelly severe upon his peasants, who 
have twice broken faith with him. In the Duchy of Wurtemberg, 
6,000 have been killed ; in different places in Swabia, 10,000. It is 
said that in Alsace the Duke of Lorraine has slain 20,000. Thus 
everywhere the wretched peasants are cut down.' 

The struggle extended into Styria and Carinthia, 
where there had been risings before, and lingered on 
longest in the Tyrol. It was not till Truchsess was aided 
by the General George Frundsberg, the old general who 



ch. v. Revolution. 147 

had shaken hands with Luther in the Diet of Worms, 
that victory was secured to the higher powers. 

Before the Peasants' War was ended at least 100,000 
perished, or twenty times as many as were put to death 
in Paris during the Reign of Terror in 1793. 

So ended the peasants' revolution. For two or three 
centuries more the poor German peasantry must bear 
the yoke of. feudal serfdom. They must wait till, in 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, German states- 
men, awakened by the French Revolution, saw the neces- 
sity of preventing another Peasants' War by granting a 
timely reform. 

Luther, throughout the Peasants' War, sided with the 
ruling powers. He was firm as a rock in opposing the 
use of the sword against the civil power. The The attitude 
reform he sought was by means of the civil of Luther 
power ; and in order to clear himself and his Peasants' 6 
cause from all participation in the wild doings Wan 
of the peasantry, he publicly exhorted the princes to crush 
their rebellion. The peasants thought that in Luther 
(himself a peasant) they should have found a friend, but 
they were bitterly disappointed. He hounded on the 
princes in their work of blood. 

That Luther should be bitter against Miinzer and the 
wild prophets of revolution was but natural. He had 
seen the end from the beginning ; he had left his retreat 
in the Wartburg four years before to quell the tumults at 
Wittenberg. Driven out of Wittenberg the prophets had 
become 'madder still. No doubt Europe owed much to 
the right-mindedness of Luther in setting his face against 
a resort to the sword in the cause of religious reform. 
Yet one cannot sympathize with Luther's harsh treatment 
of the peasantry and their misguided leaders. It cannot 
be denied that to some extent this revolution had grown 
up from the dragon's teeth that he himself had sown. 



148 The Protestant Revolution. pt. 11. 

There was a time when he himself had used wild lan- 
guage and done wild deeds. Erasmus had predicted that 
all Europe would be turned upside down in a universal 
revolution ; and had it not come to pass ? The monks 
blamed Erasmus and the new learning ; Erasmus blamed 
the wildness of Luther ; Luther blamed the 
reany^to 5 wilder prophets. Who was to blame ? History 
blame? w ^ not j a y ^g bi ame on Erasmus or Luther, 

or on the wilder prophets, or on the misguided peasantry, 
but on the higher powers whose place it was to have 
averted revolution by timely reforms. It was their re- 
fusal of reform which was the real cause of revolution. 
It wag the conspiracy of the higher powers at the Diet 
of "VNlorms to sacrifice the common weal to their own 
ambitious objects on which history will lay the blame of 
the Peasants' War. 

In the meantime let us not forget that there was 
one at least of the higher powers who had no share 
in the blame — one of them who had shown himself 
able to sacrifice his own ambition to the common weal, 
Death of the who had worked silently and hard for reform 
SaxST' ° f — t ^ ie g°°d Elector Frederic of Saxony. As 
May 1525. the peasant rebellion under Miinzer was going 
on in Thuringia, on the threshold of Saxony, he lay dying. 
He had no revengeful feelings. He did not urge on the 
slaughter of the peasantry like Luther. He wrote to his 
brother, Duke John, who succeeded him as Elector, and 
who was gone with the army, to act prudently and leni- 
ently. If the peasants' turn had really come to rule, God's 
will be done ! Only his servants were with him, 'Dear 
children,' he said to them, ' if I have offended any of you, 
forgive me, for the love of God ; we princes do many 
things to the poor people that we ought not to do ! ' 

Soon after he received the sacrament, and died. 



ch. v. Revolution. 149 

{d) The Sack of Rome (1527). 

Now let us see what was the result to the higher powers 
themselves of the secret treaty of Worms, Alliance of 
May8, 1 52 1, by which the Pope and Em- £**£<£„. 
peror were to join their forces against France, peror against 
and to secure which the interests of the Ger- 
man people were deliberately sacrificed. 

Henry VIII. of England soon joined the alliance 
against France. He had secret reasons to be mentioned 
hereafter for keeping on good terms with Henry VIII. 
Charles V. and the Pope, and so had his J° insit - 
minister Cardinal Wolsey. Henry was tempted also with 
the prospect of winning back the English provinces in 
France, while Wolsey was flattered by the promises of 
Charles V. to do all he could to get him elected Pope on 
the next vacancy. 

The first skirmishes took place between Charles V. 
and Francis I. in the north, but with no decisive results. 
Meanwhile the allied army in Italy was strengthened and 
that of France weakened by the Swiss soldiers under the 
pay of France being withdrawn, and Swiss recruits ac- 
cepting imperial pay. The armies were soon in motion, 
and on Nov. 25, 1521, Leo X. received tidings that the 
allied army had triumphantly entered the city p ope Leo x. 
of Milan, but while the rejoicings at Rome in dieSj J 5 21 - 
celebration of their triumph were still going on, the Pope 
suddenly died, on December 1, not without suspicion of 
poison. 

To the surprise ot everyone the Emperor's old tutor 
was now elected Pope under the title of 
Adrian VI. Charles V. had not used his in- 
fluence to promote the success of Wolsey. Adrian was a 
Dutchman — a nominal governor in Spain while Ximenes 
really governed ; and more likely to serve Spanish in- 



1 50 The Protestant Revolution. PT . 11. 

terests than the wily English minister. Adrian was a 
sternly virtuous, well-meaning pope. He would have made 
peace if he could. He would have reconciled the German 
nation by reforms if he could, but with the wish he had 
not the power. Everything was against him ; he was 
Clement °^ ' ^ s rei S n was short, and he died in 1523, 

vii. Pope, to make way, not for Wolsey, for again 
Charles V. played his own game, but for 
another of the Medici, Clement VII. He was not a 
Spaniard, but the most powerful ally of Spain that Italy 
could produce among her cardinals. 

In the meantime the Duke of Bourbon (one of the 
Duchies which were subject to the French crown) re- 
belled from Francis I. and joined the impe- 
Eourbon rial league against France. Henry VIII. also 

ieasrue 16 was once m ore tempted by a vague prospect 

against of again annexing French provinces to the 

France ... 

English crown, to help in the invasion of 
France. 

The result of this invasion was to rouse the national 
feeling, and therefore the power of France. It was un- 
Frands I. successful, and ended in Francis I. assuming 
crosses the the offensive and cross i ng the Alps. Then 

Made came the battle of Pavia in 1524, in which the 

th? batti? f imperial armies under the Duke of Bourbon 
Pavia. and the old German general Frundsberg 

gained the victory, and Francis I. was taken prisoner. 

Henry VIII. began now to dream not only of getting 
back the lost English provinces, but even of being king of 
France. But Charles V. had little confidence in him and 
Wolsey. He was playing his own game, not that of 
Henry VIII. 

Pope Clement VI I. meanwhile had expected Francis I. 
to win at the battle of Pavia, and, to make himself safe, 
had come to secret terms of alliance with him. Before 



ch. v. Revolution. i 5 1 

the battle of Pavia he had gone so far as almost to 
break with the Emperor. After the battle, all Rupture 
Italy began to be afraid that Spanish influence between 

, , , - . Charles V. 

would become omnipotent ; so a rupture and the 
between the Pope and Spain was imminent. Pope - 
In the meantime the Emperor removed his royal prisoner 
to Spain, so taking him out of the hands of his allies. 
Then came. the breach between Charles V. and Henry 
VIII., the marriage of Charles— so long intended but 
kept secret— to the Infanta of Portugal, instead of to the 
English Princess Mary ; the secret peace of Henry with 
France. In 1526, followed the release of Francis on his 
oath to observe conditions from which the Pope at once 
formally absolved him. This produced a final breach 
between the Emperor and the Pope, and an alliance 
between the Pope and Francis against the Emperor. 

It was at this moment that the Diet of Spires was 
sitting. The Emperor had ordered that stringent measures 
should be taken against the Lutheran heresy, 
and that the Edict of Worms should be the Diet of 
carried out. This was impossible. The new s P ires - 
Elector of Saxony, and those who sided with him, were 
too strongly supported for such a course to be taken. 
Now the breach between the Pope and the Emperor came 
to their aid. The Emperor no longer cared to back up 
the interests of a Pope who had quarrelled with him, and 
the result of the Diet was a decree signed by Ferdinand, 
the brother of Charles V., in the Emperor's stead, con- 
taining the memorable clause, that ' Each state should, 
as regards the Edict of Worms, so live, rule, and bear 
itself as it thought it could answer it to God and the 
Emperor.' 

This left the Catholic princes to do as they liked on 
the one hand, and the princes who favoured Luther to do 
as they liked on the other. From this decree of the Diet 



152 The Protestant Revolution. pt. n. 

of Spires came the division of Germany into Catholic and 
Protestant states. 

This came out of the quarrel between the Pope and 
Emperor. The next thing was the gathering of a Ger- 
March of a man army under George Frundsberg, an army 
arm" 1 on composed almost entirely of Lutherans, under 

Rome. a Lutheran general, a host of discontented, 

wild, reckless men, who had survived the horrors of the 
Peasants' War, were inspired by hope of plunder, and 
inflamed by the zeal of Frundsberg, who declared, ' When 
I make my way to Rome, I will hang the Pope ! ' 

They crossed the Alps by a dangerous unguarded pass, 
descended into the plains of Lombardy, and then joined 
the Spanish army under the Duke of Bourbon. This was 
in January 1527. A few weeks more, and the combined 
army, 20,000 strong, was marching on Rome. Then came 
delays, rumours of a truce, and the mutiny of the Spanish 
soldiers for their long-withheld pay. Lastly, the German 
soldiers also mutinied, in vexation at which the old vete- 
ran general Frundsberg fell powerless under a shock of 
paralysis. The army advanced under Bourbon, and then 
followed the commencement of the siege of Rome ; the 
death of Bourbon, shot as he was mounting a ladder ; 
and — the rest shall be told in the graphic words, which 
the brother of the Emperor's secretary Valdez put into the 
mouth of an eye-witness in his ' Dialogue on the Sack 
of Rome.' 

'The Emperor's army was so desirous to enter Rome, 
The sack some to rob and spoil, others for the extreme 
of Rome. hatred they bore to the Court of Rome, and 
some both for the one and the other cause, that the Spani- 
ards and the Italians on the one side by scale, and the 
Germans on the other side by pickaxes breaking down the 
wall, entered by the Borgo,on which side stands the Church 
of St. Peter and the Holy Palace. Though those within 



ch. v. Revolution. 153 

had artillery and those without none, yet they entered with- 
out the slaughter of a hundred of themselves. Of those 
within were slain, some say 6,oco, but in truth there died 
not upon the entry above 4,000, for they immediately re- 
tired into the city. The Pope in his own palace was so 
careless that it was a wonder he was not taken, but seeing 
how matters stood; he retired himself into the castle of 
St. Angelo, with thirteen cardinals and other bishops and 
principal persons who stayed with him. And presently 
the enemies entered, and spoiled and sacked all that was 
in the palace, and the like did they to the cardinals' 
houses and all other houses within the Borgo, not sparing 
any, no not the Church of the Prince of the Apostles ! 
This day they had enough to do without entering Rome, 
whither our people, hoisting up the drawbridge, had re- 
tired and fortified themselves. The poor Roman people, 
seeing their manifest destruction, would have sent am- 
bassadors to the army of the Emperor to have agreed 
with him, and to have avoided the sack ; but the Pope 
would by no means consent to it. 

' The captains of the Emperor presently determined 
to assault the city, and the very same night, fighting with 
their enemies, they entered, and the sack continued more 
than eight days, in which time they had no regard of 
nation, quality, or kind of men. The captains did what 
they could to stop it, but the soldiers, being so fleshed in 
their robberies as they were, you should behold troops 
of soldiers passing the streets with cries ; one carried 
prisoners, another plate, another household stuff. The 
sighs, groans, and outcries of women and children in all 
places were so piteous that my bones yet shake to make 
report of them. They carried no respect to bishops or 
cardinals, churches or monasteries ; all was fish that 
came into their net ; there was never seen more cruelty, 
less humanity nor fear of God. 



154 The Protestant Revolution. pt. n. 

' They had no respect even to Spaniards and Ger- 
mans, and other nations that were vassals and servants 
to the Emperor. They left neither house, nor church, nor 
man that was in Rome unsacked or ransomed, not even 
the secretary Perez himself, who was resident at Rome 
on behalf of the Emperor. Those cardinals who could 
not escape with the Pope into the castle of St. Angelo 
were taken and ransomed, and their persons full ill— 
favouredly handled, being drawn through the streets of 
Rome bare-legged. To make mocking of them, a Ger- 
man, clothing himself like a cardinal, went riding about 
Rome in his " pontificalibus," and a bottle of wine on the 
pommel of his saddle, and then a Spaniard in the same 
manner, with a courtezan behind him. The Germans 
led a bishop of their own nation (who stood upon election 
to have been a cardinal) to the market-place to be sold, 
with a bough in his forehead, as they do when they sell 
beasts. 

' It is said that the sack of Rome amounted unto, by 
ransoms and compositions, above 15 millions of ducats. 
Churches were turned into stables. The Church of St. 
Peter, both on the one side and the other, was all full of 
horses ! Soldiers carried along the streets nuns from 
monasteries and virgins from their father's houses, and 
from the time that the Emperor's army entered Rome 
till the time that I departed — the 1 2th June — there was 
not a mass said in Rome, nor all that time heard we a 
bell ring nor a clock. Not a priest or friar dared walk 
in the streets except in garments of a soldier, else the 
Germans would cry out, " A pope, a pope, kill, kill ! " ' 

This was what had come to the Pope from the con- 
spiracy of his predecessor with the Emperor at Worms, 
— an imperial edict at the Diet of Spires, in 1526, leaving 
the states of Germany virtually free to adhere to or sever 
themselves from the ecclesiastical empire of Rome as 



CH. V. 



Revolution. 155 



they severally pleased ; — Rome sacked by a German 
army in the Emperor's name 3 and more pitilessly pillaged 
than it had been 1000 years before by the Vandals ; — 
the Pope a prisoner of the Emperor in the castle of St. 
Angelo, and henceforth destined to act as the tool of his 
imperial master, and to yield an enforced submission to 
the supremacy of Spain ! 

We may take this result as marking an 
epoch. Rome had for ever ceased to be the Papal 
capital of Christendom. The old Roman form P° hc y- 
of civilisation radiating from Rome had finally given 
place to a new form of civilisation, which would go on its 
way independently of Rome, and which Rome was no 
longer able either to inspire or to control. 




K 






156 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 



PART III. 

RESULTS OF THE PROTESTANT 
REVOLUTION. 



CHAPTER I. 
revolts from rome. 

In Switzerland and Germany. 
(a) Meaning of 'Revolt from Rome. 

We have now to trace how the Protestant Revolution re- 
sulted in several national revolts from the ecclesiastical 
empire of Rome. 

But first, what did a national revolt from Rome mean? 
It was the claiming by the civil power in each nation of 
,. . . those rights which the Pope had hitherto 

Meaning of ..,.-. , , f , , 

Revolt from claimed within it as head of the great eccle- 
ome- siastical empire. The clergy and monks had 

hitherto been regarded more or less as foreigners — i.e. as 
subjects of the Pope's ecclesiastical empire. Where 
there was revolt from Rome the allegiance of these 
persons to the Pope was annulled, and the civil power 
claimed as full a sovereignty over them as it had over its 
lay subjects. Matters relating to marriages and wills still 
for the most part remained under ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion as before, but then, as the ecclesiastical courts them- 



H. I. 



Revolts from Rome. 



'SJ 




158 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

selves became national courts and ceased to be Roman 
or Papal, all these matters came under the control of the 
civil power. Even in matters of religious doctrine and 
practice and public worship, the civil power often claimed 
the final authority hitherto exercised by the Pope. 

Such being the meaning of revolt from Rome, it will 
be clear at once that it was a political 'quite as much as and 
a political sometimes more than a religious matter — an 
change. assertion by the civil power in each nation of 

that free independent national life which we noticed as 
characteristic of the new order of things. 

A study of the map showing ' the extent of the revolt 

from Rome ' will illustrate this by another fact — viz. that 

it was those nations which in the main are of 

The Teu- m . ^ . . „ _, ., i 

tonic nations T eutonic or German origin — Germany, Swit- 
The^Ro- zerland, Denmark, Sweden, England, Scot- 

manic na- land, and the Netherlands — which finally made 
mamecT good their revolt from Rome. As the Ger- 

underRome. mans un der their great leader ' Hermann ' had, 
1500 years before, been the first to make good their inde- 
pendence from the old Roman Empire, so it was in the 
nations which were of Germanic speech and origin that 
revolt was made from papal Rome. On the other hand 
those nations— Spain, France, and Italy— which had 
long formed a part of the old Roman Empire, and were 
Romanic in their languages and instincts, remained in 
allegiance to the Pope. 

There were no doubt many people in Spain, France, 
and Italy who sympathised with the doctrines of the 
Reformers, but there was no revolt, because these nations, 
or the civil powers representing them, chose to remain 
politically connected with Rome. 

It is well to observe also how the turn the revolt took 
in the revolting nations was in a great degree the result 
of their political condition. 

Thus in England, Denmark, Sweden, in which the 



ch. i. Revolts from Rome — Switzerland. 159 

central power was strong enough to act for the nation 
and to carry the nation with it, there was a 
decisive national revolt from Rome ; while in nations there 
Switzerland and Germany, where practically JJ ^J 2J^ olt 
there was no central power capable of acting ip some di- 
for the nation as a whole, there were divisions an d civil 
and civil wars within the nation, some of its wars - 
petty states . at length revolting from Rome, and others 
remaining under the ecclesiastical empire. 

We will first take the case of these divided nations — 
Switzerland and Germany — and then pass on to the 
others. 

(b) Th e Revolt in Switzerland ( 1 5 24- 1 5 3 1 ) . 




No nation was so absolutely without a central autho- 
rity as the Swiss. Each canton was as independent of 
the others for most purposes as the petty ' 

r ~ -ttti tit i • Switzerland 

feudal states of Germany. When Machia- divided into 
velli complained of the divisions of Italy 



Cantons. 



160 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

preventing its becoming a nation, he warned the Italians 
of the danger of a country being ' cantonized ' like Switzer- 
land. But there was this difference between a Swiss 
canton and a petty feudal state. .In the Swiss canton 
there was no feudal lord ; the people governed themselves. 
It was not a feudal lordship, but a little republic of com- 
munes or villages of the primitive Teutonic type, in which 
the civil power was vested in the community. 

If therefore in a Swiss canton the civil power took to 
Civil power i tse lf the ecclesiastical power hitherto held 
vested in by the Pope, that power became vested in 

peop e. t ^ e p eo pi e ^ no tj as in other countries, in the 
prince or king. 

Bearing this in mind, the history of the revolt from 
Rome in Switzerland will be easily comprehended. 

The Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingle, was born in 
Ulrich 1484, and was the son of the chief man of his 

iwiss gl re- the village. Well educated at Basle and Berne, 
former. and a fter having taken his degree at the 

university at Vienna, he became a curate in Canton 
Glarus. The new learning had spread into Switzerland, 
and Zwingle was one of its disciples. He studied Plato 
and the New Testament in Greek, like Colet and Eras- 
mus. Being sent into Italy twice as army preacher, he 
saw the Swiss troops conquered at Marignano, and re- 
turned home full of patriotic hatred of the system of hiring 
out troops to fight other nations' battles. Then he settled 
Settles at m Zurich and became a reformer ; preaching 
Zurich. against indulgences, celibacy in the clergy, 

and whatever else he thought could not be justified by the 
New Testament. 

Zurich as- *^ s own canton > Zurich, under his in- 

sumes to fluence, threw off the episcopal yoke of the 
siastical e " Bishop of Constance and assumed the ecclesi- 
powers. astical authority to itself. The Zurich govern- 



ch. i. Revolts from Rome — Switzerland. 161 

ment authorised the use of their mother tongue instead of 
Latin in public worship, burned the relics from the shrines 
and altered the mode of administering the „ 

_ „ . , , , r Berne did 

sacraments. So Zurich revolted from Rome the same 
in 1524. Berne followed soon after; while soonafter - 
the Forest Cantons — Lucerne^Zug, Schwitz, Uri, and Un- 
terwalden — followed by Fribourg and the Valais, which 
was not yet a Swiss canton, held to the old order of 
things. 

Some cantons going one way and some another, the 
result was division and civil war, the Catholic cantons 
calling in the aid of their old feudal enemies 
the House of Hapsburg. The civil war m wai * 
lasted, off and on, for two or three years till, in 1531, 
after Zwingle himself had fallen in battle, it was ended by 
the peace of Cappel, at which it was decided p eace of 
that each canton should do as it liked, while Cappel, 1531. 
in the districts which were dependent on the Swiss Con- 
federation, and not to any particular canton, the majority 
in each congregation should manage its own ecclesiastical 
affairs. The map will show which cantons revolted from 
Rome, and how the districts were divided in their action. 

Zwingle was a true patriot. He wished to see the 
Swiss a united nation ; and with that object he proposed 
political as well as religious reforms which character of 
are now being carried out. He was rather a Zwingle. 
disciple of Erasmus than of Luther He did not adopt the 
strong Augustinian views of Luther. He also took freer 
views respecting the sacraments. Luther, a slave in w this 
respect to the mere letter of Scripture, held by the words 
' This is my body ' so strongly as to uphold 

1 n • r , i 1 *i Luther quar- 

the doctrine of ' the real presence almost as reis with 
fully as the Catholic party. Zwingle took Zwin § le - 
wider views, treating the sacrament as a symbol. The 
violent dogmatic intolerant spirit of Luther was never 
M 



1 62 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

more painfully shown than in the dispute with Zwingle 
on this subject. The bitter hatred he showed of Zwingle 
and Erasmus was all of a piece with his violent feelings 
against the poor peasants of Germany. Whilst doing 
justice to the noble and heroic character of the great 
German reformer, these things remind us that there 
lingered in his mind much of the dogmatism and intole- 
rance of the scholastic theologian. 

ic) The Revolt in Germany (152 6- 1555). 

We have seen how the German people suffered at the 
commencement of the era because they had not yet become 
a united nation ; and also how deep and widely spread 
were their yearnings after national life and unity — peasants 
crying out to the higher powers for protection from feudal 
oppression — Luther and Hutten appealing to them to free 
the German nation from the tyranny of the great ecclesi- 
astical empire of Rome. Had Charles V. cared more for 
Germany than his own selfish ambitions, and put himself 
at the head of the strong national feeling, as Frederick of 
Saxony wanted him to do at Worms, there was at least a 
good chance of uniting Germany into a powerful and 
prosperous nation. But he threw away the chance. We 
have seen how the course taken by Charles V. and the 
higher powers in the Diet of Worms produced a re- 
volution which cost a hundred thousand lives. We have 
The freedom now to see ^ ow ^ divided Germany into two 
of the Ger- hostile camps, brought upon her the horrors 

man peasan- _ , _, . __ , ,__ . _ . , 

try post- of the Thirty Years' War, postponed for eight 

geneidons. n or ten generations the freedom of her peasan- 
try, and left to our own times the realisation 
Spires, 1526, of the yearnings of the German people after 
left each national unity. 

state to take J 

its own The decision of the Diet of Spires in 1526 

Luther , a ° u had already settled that each state of the Em- 



ch. i. Revolts from Rome — Germany. 163 

pire should do as it thought best in the matter of the 
edict against Luther. 

As might be expected, those princes who sided with 
Luther, and followed the lead of Saxony, at once took 
reform into their own hands. Monasteries Hence arose 
were reformed or suppressed, and their reve- Protestant 

rjr ' . states, with 

nues turned to good account, either for edu- national 
cational purposes, for supporting the preach- froKme? 
ing of the gospel, or for the poor. Monks ^ 1 a e in °^ ers 
and nuns were allowed to marry, Luther him- Catholic. 
self setting the example of marrying a nun. Divine 
service was in part carried on in German, though Latin 
was not entirely excluded. The youth were taught to 
read in common schools and in the language of the Father- 
land. Luther's German Bible and German hymns came 
into popular use. In a word, in what were called the 
' Evangelical States ' a severance was made from the 
Church of Rome ; and national churches sprang up, rest- 
ing on the civil power of each state for their authority 
and adopting Lutheran doctrines. This was the result of 
the decree of the first Diet of Spires and the Emperor's 
quarrel with the Pope. 

Meanwhile the Emperor, having settled his quarrel 
with the Pope, returned to his loyalty to Rome, The second 
and, taking advantage of this, the Catholic Di ?t of 
party succeeded, in the second Diet of Spires, reversedth?' 
in 1529, in passing a decree re-enacting the notwith- 
Edict of Worms, and forbidding all further standing the 
reform 'till a regular council was summoned. Se?«?«/. 
The Lutheran princes protested against the ant P rinces - 
•decree, and so earned the name of t Protestants.' 

Civil war would very likely have at once resulted from 
this had not the Turks very opportunely made an attempt 
to extend their empire westward by besieging Vienna. 
The old dread which filled the minds of Christians at the 



164 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. 



hi. 



beginning of the era came upon them again. Melanchthon,, 
who, with all his wisdom, still believed in astrology, 
watched the movements of the stars, and 
averted by augured disastrous results from the approach 
atfad^on 5 °^ a comet - Luther showed how thorough a 
Vienna. German he was by counselling unity in the 

moment of common danger. For a time Germany was 
united again, but only till the Turks had retreated from 
Vienna. 

Charles V. had now reached the summit of his power. 
He had conquered France, he had conquered the Pope, 
The Turks ne nac ^ been crowned king of Italy at Bologna. 
driven back. He was now again reconciled with the Pope* 

Charles V 

turns again and lastly, he had driven back the Turks. He 
manhere- **ad on ^ to conc l uer tne heretics of Germany 
tics. to complete the list of his triumphs. So he 

came in person to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 to ensure 
by his presence the enforcement of the Edict of Worms.. 
Every effort was made to induce the Protestant princes 
Diet of t0 su bmit ; but, headed by John of Saxony and 

Augsburg. Philip of Hesse, they maintained their ground, 
burg Corf- 5 " Luther and Melanchthon were at Coburg, 
fession. near at hand, and drew up a statement of 

Lutheran doctrines which was known henceforth as the 
1 Augsburg Confession.' 

The Emperor at length gave them a few months to 
consider whether they would submit ; if not, the decree 
of the Diet was, that the Lutheran heresy 
princes form should be crushed by the imperial power. 
ofVchmat The Protestant princes at once formed the 
kaid for mu- ' league of Schmalkalden ' for mutual defence, 
e ence. ^^ ^.^ - n ^.^ ^ Luther's protest against 
opposition to the civil power, would have at once led to 
civil war, had not another Turkish invasion in 1532 again 
diverted the attention of Charles V. and of Germany 
from religious disputes. 



ch. i. Revolts from Rome — Germany. 165 

During the life of Luther, the inevitable civil war was 
postponed. Melanchthon used the delay for an attempt, 
h>y argument and persuasion, to bring about a reconcili- 
ation between Catholic and Protestant theologians. At 
the council of Ratisbon, as we shall see by-and-by, a 
theological peace was almost concluded ; but the schism 
was too wide and deep to be healed so easily. „. ., 

Civil war 

Meanwhile, state after state went over to the postponed 
Protestant side, and civil war became more Luther's 
and more imminent. The death of Luther in life, 
1546 was the signal for its commencement. The Emperor 
and Catholic princes, by means of Spanish soldiers, now 
tried to reduce to obedience the princes of . 

the Schmalkald league. They conquered the soonafte? ins 
Elector John Frederic of Saxony and Duke his death - 
Philip of Hesse, the leaders of the Lutheran party, and 
proceeded to enforce by the sword a return to Catholic 
faith and practice all over Germany. 

Charles V. now appeared in his true light as the 
Spanish conqueror of Germany. John Frederick of 
Saxony and Philip of Hesse, the most beloved Spanish con . 
and truly German of German princes, were quest of Ger- 
sentenced to death, kept in prison, and bru- many " 
tally treated. Germany, which Charles V. had sacrificed 
at the Diet of Worms to secure his Spanish policy, was 
now kept down by Spanish soldiers, and practically made 
into a Spanish province. 

This, was not the national unity which the German 
people yearned after; it was subjugation to a foreign 
yoke. 

A few years of Spanish rule produced its natural 
effect — revolt of the German princes, alliance even with 
France! and then came, with strange suddenness, the 
defeat and flight of Charles V. He made an attempt to 
regain part of the ground which the French had taken, 



1 66 Results of tJic Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

and then abdicated, leaving the empire to his brother 

Ferdinand, Spain and the Netherlands to his son Philip 

II. Then followed his cloister life, his strange 

Revolt of . ; , , ° 

the Protes- remorse m consideration that he had not 
Defouof es ' averted all these evils by the timely destruction 
Charles v.; f the heretic Luther at the Diet of Worms ; 
tionand and then at last the end of his strange, brilliant, 

death. but m i sgu ided life in 1558. 

The struggle of Charles V. with Germany ended in 

the Peace of Augsburg (1555), with its legal recognition 

of the Protestant states and its wretched rule 

The Peace 

of Augsburg of mock toleration — cujus regio, ejus religio 
it? rule rf d — toleration to princes, with power to compel 
mock tolera- their subjects to be of the same religion as 

themselves ! It was a peace so rotten in its 
foundation that out of it came by inevitable necessity 
that most terrible chapter of German history, and perhaps 
of any history — the Thirty Years' 1 War— which cost Ger- 
many, some say, half her population, robbed her citizens 
of the last vestige of their political freedom, confirmed the 
serfdom of her peasantry for two centuries more, and 
left upon some of her provinces scars which may be 
traced to-day. 

Such terrible paths had the German people to tread 
towards national freedom and unity. Ten generations 

of Germans had to bear the curse brought 
brought upon them, not by the Reformation, but by 

m P an n y by r ~ those who opposed it — not by Luther, nor 
Charles v. even by Miinzer and his wild associates, but 
by the Emperor Charles V. and others of the higher 
powers who sided with him when he sold the interests of 
Germany and signed the treaty with the Pope on that 
fatal 8th of May, 1 521, at the Diet of Worms. 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 167 
CHAPTER II. 

REVOLT OF ENGLAND FROM ROME. 

(a) Its Political Character. 

There were two points in which the revolt of England 
from Rome differed from the revolt in Switzerland and 
Germany. 

(1) England was a compact nation with a strong 
central government ; and so, instead of splitting into 
parties and ending in civil war, revolted in England 
altogether, the king and parliament acting ^^ e 
together, and transferring to the crown the was national, 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction hitherto exercised by the Pope 
in England. 

(2) In the Protestant states of Germany and cantons 
of Switzerland, a religious movement had preceded and 
caused the political change ; but in England and came at 
the political change came first and the Sj-^X 
change in doctrine and mode of worship long causes. 
afterwards. The severance of England from Rome was 
not the result of a religious movement, but of political 
causes, which we must now trace. 

(b) Reasons for Henry Villus Loyalty to Rome (1521). 

Up to a certain point in his reign Henry VIII. held by 
the Pope and opposed Luther. At the time of Hem-yVin. 
the Diet of Worms he joined the league of the dfvine amha- 
Pope and Emperor, not only against France, rityofthe 
but also against Luther. Whilst the Diet of writes T 
Worms was sitting, he wrote his celebrated book against 

i3} Luther in 

book against Luther and in defence of the 1521. 
divine authority of the Pope — for doing which the 



1 68 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

Pope rewarded him with the title of ' Defender of the 
Faith.' 

His zeal in this matter was so eager as to surprise Sir 
Thomas More, who was now in Henry VIII.'s service. 
When the king showed him the book, and he saw the 
passages in defence of the divine authority of the Pope, 
He tells Sir More (who himself doubted it, and had hinted 
Thomas his doubts in his Utopia by making the 

More of a se- TT . lt _ . . r _ . _ ° 

cret reason Utopians talk of electing a Pope of their own) 
font. questioned with the king whether it was wise 

to write so strongly on that point. ' Whereunto (More 
says) his Highness answered me that he would in no wise 
anything minish of that matter ; of which thing his High- 
ness showed me a secret cause whereof I never had any- 
thing heard before.' 

Thereupon More studied the matter afresh, altered 
his opinion, came to the conclusion that the Papacy was 
of divine authority, and held that view so strongly ever 
after, that at last he died rather than deny it. The reasons 
which made Henry VIII. uphold the divine authority of 
the Pope, are the clue to the history of the severance of 
England from Rome afterwards. 

What were they ? 

We saw how the ruling idea of Henry VII. was to 
establish himself and his heirs firmly on the throne. 
English kings had of late had such precarious thrones 
that they lived in constant fear of rebellions and pretenders. 
We saw how much Henry VII. relied on his foreign policy 
and alliances to make his throne secure, and that the chief 
Henry W2L Y °f making these alliances firm, in an age 

viii.'s mar- of bad faith and Machiavellian policy, was by 
Catherine of royal marriages. Henry VII. knew Ferdi- 
Arragon. nand of Spain would tell lies or break his oath 

without remorse, but he also knew that if he could marry 
his son and probable successor to Ferdinand's daughter, 



CH. IT. 



Revolt of England from Rome. 



Ferdinand would stick by him in close alliance in order 
to secure that his daughter might some day be queen of 
England. So Henry VII. had married his eldest son 
Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of Arragon, and 
when Arthur died, had strained a point to get Catherine 
betrothed to his next son, Henry VIII. 

Now there was a difficulty about this marriage. If the 
marriage with Arthur was a merely formal marriage, then 
it was only an ecclesiastical matter, and the Pope's con- 
sent to Catherine's marriage with Henry might make all 
right. But if it was a real marriage, then the 
second marriage with Henry was held to be doubts about 
contrary to the divine law, contained in the lts vahdlt y- 
Book of Leviticus, by which such a marriage was sup- 
posed to be forbidden : and so, in that case, the question 
would be whether the Pope could set aside the divine law, 
and make lawful what it forbad. To do this must cer- 
tainly be a great stretch of the papal power, and it only 
could be justified on the very high ground of the divine 
authority of the Pope. 

The betrothal of Henry to Catherine was from the 
beginning a miserable affair. Its object was political. It 
was his father Henry VII.'s doing while he _ 

, , , , _ n -II I ts unsatis- 

was a boy ; and so doubtful, to say the least, factory be- 
was its validity to those who knew all about § innin ^- 
it, that to Henry VII.'s superstitious mind the death of 
his queen seemed a divine judgment upon it. He even 
then, as we have seen, proposed to marry Catherine him- 
self, but Ferdinand of Spain would not hear of it. A 
bull was obtained from Pope Julius II., treating the ques- 
tion of the reality of the former marriage as doubtful, 
but, notwithstanding the doubts, sanctioning Catherine's 
marriage with Henry. The betrothal was completed, but 
the wary monarch made his son sign a secret protest 
against it as soon as he was of age, so that he might at any 



170 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

time set it aside if the turn of political events made it 
expedient to do so. We must remember, however, that 
some of these matters were court secrets, and would 
never have been publicly known had not future events, 
brought them to light 

Upon the accession of Henry VIII. it was needful for 
him to make up his mind about his marriage. The doubts, 
and difficulties remained the same as ever to those who 
knew all about it, and it was not possible to dispel them. 
But the alliance with Spain was still considered important. 
And so the marriage with Catherine was concluded. The 
public were told that the former marriage had never been 
consummated, and that Henry VIII. was acting under 
the sanction of a Papal bull. This silenced talk out of 
doors, and the King smothered any secret doubts of his 
own, relying on the divine authority of the Pope. So 
the matter was concluded, and now for years had not 
been questioned again. When, therefore, Luther's attack 
upon the divine authority of the Pope was attracting at- 
its validity tention everywhere, we see that Henry VIII. 
rested on the had serious reasons of 'his own for defending 

Divine . -r T 1 • 1 -i i- t • 

authority of it. He knew in fact that the validity of his 
the Pope. marriage, and the legitimacy of his children's 
rights to succeed to the throne, depended upon it. 

He had naturally been very anxious for an heir, so 
that his throne might be secure. Unless he had an heir, 
Henry people must be thinking who will be king next, 

anxiety an ^ plotting to succeed to the throne. Henry 

about it, and anc i Catherine had had several children, but 

th.6 SUCC6S- - 

sion. all had died except one — the Princess Mary — 

And anxiety who, at the time of the Diet of Worms, was a 
good terms child of four years old. On her alone the suc- 
PoVand cession depended, and Henry was anxious to 
Charles v. secure it, as we have seen, by a close alliance 
with the Pope and Spain, cemented by the marriage of 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. lyi 

the Princess Mary to Charles V. Henry VIII. knew that 
the succession to the throne might at any time be made 
very precarious indeed if he should ever quarrel with the 
Papal and Spanish courts. 

An event which happened about this time showed how 
keenly alive Henry VIII. was to these anxieties about the 
succession of the Princess Mary. He startled • 

i i t -11 11 • r i Execution of 

the world all at once by the execution of the the Duke of 
Duke of Buckingham for treason ; for having f^f^ m 
his eye on the succession to the throne. The n , is e Y e u P oni 

trie succcs- 

Duke, it was said, amongst other things, had s ion to the 
been heard to speak of the death of the royal throne - 
children as judgments on Henry and Catherine for their 
marriage. This was enough to rouse Henry's suspicions, 
and so, after a formal trial, he was found guilty of treason 
and beheaded as a warning; to others. 



(c) Sir Thomas More defends Henry VIII. against 
Luther (i 521-1525). 

Probably the secret which Henry VIII. confided to 
Sir Thomas More had something to do with the doubts, 
about the validity of the marriage, and opened Eff ect f 
his eyes to the fact how the succession to the knowledge of 
throne and the safety of the kingdom was in- viTl.'s se- 
volved in the question of the divine authority Thomas^ 
of the Pope. It set him, as we have said, More's 
studying the fathers until he came to the con- m n 
elusion that an authority which had so long been recog- 
nized, and on which so much depended, must have divine 
sanction. Having come to this conclusion, he was not likely 
to be made more favourable to Luther than he otherwise 
would have been. We have seen that the Oxford Re- 
formers had from the first taken high ground on the neces- 
sity of unity in the Christian Church. They had also. 



172 Results of the Protestant Revolution. 



PT. III. 



always been opposed to the Augustinian views which 
Luther had adopted. They had agreed with Luther in 
little but in the demand for a religious and ecclesiastical 
reform. 

Erasmus had refused to identify himself with Luther, 
and while defending him up to a certain point against the 
Papal party had urged upon him moderation. This ad- 
vice Luther had not followed, and now Erasmus held 
aloof from the Protestant struggle, urging moderation on 
both sides, preaching unity; and going on quietly with his 
-own works, amongst which were fresh editions of his New 
Testament. 

It is not surprising, then, that when Luther wrote his 
violent reply to Henry VIII.'s book, More should be 
ready to defend it. He did so, and as time went on his 
.zeal against Luther grew by degrees almost into hatred. 
As news of the wild doings of the prophets of Zwickau 
and the horrors of the Peasants' War were reported in 
England, More laid the blame on Luther. He regarded 
him as a dangerous fanatiCj scattering everywhere the 
seeds of rebellion against the powers that be, whether 
civil or religious. 

He also urged his friend Erasmus to write against 
Luther. In 1524, on the eve of the Peasants' War, 
Reaction in Erasmus did write a book against Luther's 
the minds of strong Augustinian views, in which he urged 

Erasmus and , , .. , ., r 

More against that they were sure to lead to all sorts of 
Luther. abuses in wilder hands. In the year of the 

Peasants' War Sir Thomas More wrote an earnest letter 
to one of Luther's supporters in Wittenberg, charging the 
Lutheran movement with having lit the flame of sedition 
•and set Germany on fire. 

It is sad to see good and noble men like More hurried 
into reaction, and unable to see the good and noble points 
in a man like Luther, as well as his violence and errors. 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 173 

But it was not unnatural. He dreaded lest the heresies 
which had led in Germany to the Peasants' War, might 
spread into England, and lest heresy and treason should 
again be joined as in the days of the Lollards. His judg- 
ment was no doubt to some extent carried away by his fears. 
But we must recognise the sincerity of mental reactions 
such as these in the lives of good men. Each class of 
Reformers we have seen to be suspicious of those who- 
went further and faster than they did themselves. Ho- 
nest men of the old school blamed Erasmus for all that 
happened. Erasmus, they said, had laid the egg, and 
Luther had hatched it. Erasmus, in his turn, blamed 
Luther's violent conduct and language. Luther again 
denounced Miinzer and the wild prophets of revolution, 
as well as the poor deluded peasants. If this was na- 
tural, so was ;the reaction in the mind of Sir Thomas 
More. We need not, however, regret it any the less on 
that account. 

(d) Reasons for Henry VIII? s change of 'Policy (1527). 

Having thus seen that Henry VIII. from policy, and 
More from conviction, were at this time strongly in favour 
of the Pope and his divine authority, the next thing is to 
mark how long Henry VIII. continued of this mind. The 
answer is, just so long as his alliance with Spain con- 
tinued. 

During the wars of the Emperor, the Pope, and Henry 
VIII. with France, Wolsey (now cardinal and legate, and 
Archbishop of York, and soon after lord chancellor also) 
was the war minister. It was he who knew all Wolsey, the 
the mind of Henry VIII. and carried on his JJ-J^J^jj 
secret negotiations with Charles V. and the Henry viii. 
Pope. It was he who managed the treachery with. 
Francis L, and made what preparation was needful for 



174 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

royal meetings, embassies, and wars. It was Wolsey, 
too, who had to manage parliaments, and urge them to 
grant subsidies to pay for the wars, and when he could get 
no more money from Parliament it was Wolsey who 
managed to get it by illegal means, such as forced con- 
tributions from private persons called 'benevolences.' 
More More was a novice on the privy council, 

th^wart with anc ^ holding Utopian views, often in a minority 
France. against Wolsey's measures. Once he was 

alone in disapproval of the great minister's plans. Wolsey 
hinted that he must be a fool. ' God be thanked,' replied 
More, ' that the king has but one fool in his council ! ' 

It mattered little to the king or Wolsey what he 
thought, but More took care to let the king know that 
England's joining in the wars with France was against his 
judgment. 

Wolsey's and Henry's confidence in Charles V. was 
shattered by degrees. First came the treachery of Charles 
Charles v.'s V. in not helping to secure the election of 
treachery. Wolsey as Pope on the death of Leo X. and 
afterwards of Adrian VI. Then came the continuance of 
the war against France, under the Duke of Bourbon, who 
flattered Henry with hopes of regaining in case of victory 
And the tne lost English provinces in France. Next 

Pope's. came Pope Clement VI I. 's fast and loose 

game with the allied sovereigns ; and lastly, the battle of 
Pavia. Of these events we have spoken in a previous 
chapter. 

On hearing the news of the capture of Francis I. at 
the battle of Pavia, Henry VIII. proposed that he himself 
should be king of France and Charles V. marry the 
Princess Mary, so that in her right Charles V. might 
some day become lord of all Christendom. Up to this 
moment he had clearly not changed his mind. He still 
wished to continue the Spanish alliance, and was true to 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 17$ 

Catherine and the Princess Mary. But just as his hopes 
were at their highest point they vanished for ever. 
Charles V. let Francis I. resume his throne on conditions 
which the Pope declared to be null and void. Charles V., 
instead of marrying the Princess Mary, married the 
Infanta of Portugal, and Henry found himself Henry 
betrayed. Charles V. and the Pope, on whose vin.'s 
alliance so much depended, had now both policy all at 
escaped from his control. When, by the con- sea agam * 
quest of Rome, the Pope himself soon after became 
Charles V.'s prisoner and tool, Henry VIII.'s foreign 
politics were indeed all at sea. 



(e) The Crisis — Henry VIII. determines upon the Divorce 
from Catherine of Arragd7i (1527-1529). 

Now look at Henry VIII.'s position. Mary was still 
his only child. There had never yet been a queen on the 
throne of England. He could no longer rely Results of 
on Charles V. and the Pope. They at any breach with 
time, and for political purposes, and in spite of pam * 
Henry, could dispute the legitimacy of his only daughter. 
Once more the succession to the throne was uncertain, 
and in its nature the uncertainty could not be cured. 
What was he to do ? 

He resolved to take the bull by the horns, to divorce 
himself from Catherine of Arragon, to disinherit Mary, to 
marry a young maid of honour, named Anne p^cal 
Boleyn, and to hope for other heirs to the reasons for 
crown. It was a bold policy, for marriage from 
was a matter which belonged to the ecclesias- Cathenne - 
tical empire, and so the divorce required the Pope's con- 
sent. Wolsey set his wits to work to secure the Pope's 
sanction to the divorce. He got his own ecclesiastical 
power as legate increased by the Pope, and Cardinal 



if 6 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

Campeggio over from Rome to join him in deciding on 
the validity of the marriage. He tried every means to 
secure the divorce required by Henry. He 
to ge? th e neS had no notion of destroying in Henry's mind 
grant a° t ^ ie P a P a l authority which as legate he wielded 

divorce, but in part, and as pope still hoped some day to 
wield entirely.- Had he succeeded in ob- 
taining the papal sanction, there would have been no 
breach with Rome. But he failed. The Pope, at the 
Henry VIII bidding of his Spanish conqueror, made end- 
takes the less delays ; and Campeggio returned without 
Ss own" 1 having settled anything. At last, in spite of 
hands. all that wolsey could do, Henry VIII. de- 

termined to marry Anne Boleyn, and took the matter 
into his own hands. 

This involved a deliberate breach with Rome and the 
fall of Wolsey. Henry VIII. made up his mind to face 
both. 

(/) Fall of Wolsey (i 529-1530). 

Cardinal Wolsey had been the very type of an over- 
grown ecclesiastical potentate. Second to none but the 
Fall of king, he had assumed to himself a vice- 

Wolsey. regal magnificence and state. And now 

that ecclesiastical grievances had come to the top, and,, 
above all, the king himself was quarrelling with the Pope, 
Wolsey became a sort of scapegoat for both ecclesiastical 
and papal sins. He was condemned formally for having 
used his legatine and ecclesiastical authority contrary to 
the royal prerogative. But the king had so far connived 
at and sanctioned the very things for which he was now 
condemned, and used them for his own purposes, that he 
could hardly deal very harshly with his old minister. He 
left him his archbishopric of York, to which he returned 
in 1530. There he resumed some of his old state, but by 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. lyy 

his intrigues to obtain popularity amongst the Northern 
nobles again* excited the fears of the court. Messengers 
were sent down to arrest him of high treason, and he was 
on his journey to London to answer the charge, when r 
seized by a fever, he died at Leicester Abbey, having first 
given utterance to the famous words, ' Had I served my 
God as I have served my king, he would not have given 
me over in my gray hairs !' Henry VIII. was not con- 
spicuous for gratitude to his ministers ! 



(g) The Parliament of 15 29- 1536. Revolt of England 
from Rome. 

Wolsey was dismissed in 1529. Hitherto the chief 
ministers and lord chancellors of kings of England had 
been ecclesiastics. This rule was now broken 
through. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk More iord aS 
were made chief ministers and Sir Thomas chancelIor - 
More lord chancellor. Lastly, a parliament was called. 

A crisis had come in English history. The parliament 
of 1529 was to England what the Diet of Worms might 
have been to Germany. The English Com- Parliament 
mons made use of this parliament, as the °Hsi??n A 
Germans did of the Diet of Worms, to make English his- 
complaints against the clergy and the ecclesi- Diet of e 
astical courts. For a long time the people of J£™ s n in 
England, like the Germans, had resisted the history. 
power of the ecclesiastical empire. The freedom of the 
clergy from the jurisdiction of the secular courts on the 
one hand, the iurisdiction of the ecclesiastical n , . 

; ■> Complain 

courts on the other hand over laymen in such against the 
matters as marriages, probates of wills, and ecclesiastical 
the distribution of property amongst the next abuses - 
of kin on the death of the owner, were real and longstand- 
ing grievances. The clergy, by their ecclesiastical courts 
N 



178 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

harassed and taxed the people beyond endurance. The 
character of the clergy and monks was also grievously 
Wolsey's at- complained of. Wolsey had sought, as Cardi- 
temptsat na i Morton had done before him, to reform 
reform under these abuses. Himself a cardinal and legate, he 
papal autho- had g^g^ p 0wer s from the Pope to repress the 

The kincr ev ^ s '■> to V1S ^ an< ^ even su PP ress some of the 
and parlia- worst of the monasteries and correct the clergy ; 
takeupThe an d his scheme, partly carried out, was to 
matter. found colleges at the universities out of the 

proceeds. This was all very well as far as it went, but 
it never went far enough to be of much use, and now the 
time of reformation under papal authority was passed. 
Both king and parliament were in a mind to undertake 
themselves the needed ecclesiastical reforms. 

A petition, describing at length the ecclesiastical 

grievances, was laid by the Commons before the king. 

The king submitted it to the bishops, at the 

Petition of . . . , r _,, ^ j. 

the Com- same time requiring henceforth that no new 
™^J s amst law should be passed by the clergy in convoca- 
ticai griev- tion, any more than in parliament, without his 
royal consent. The bishops tried to explain 
away the complaints, but before parliament was prorogued 
acts were passed fixing at reasonable sums the amounts 
to be demanded for probate of wills and funeral fees, 
prohibiting the clergy from engaging in secular business, 
or holding too many benefices, and obliging them to 
reside in their parishes. 

These were matters of practical reform, such as Colet 
had urged in his sermon to convocation in 151 1. He 
Practical ^ad ur g e ^ that the clergy in convocation 
reforms. should take up these reforms, and reform them- 

selves. They had let eighteen years slip by without doing 
it, and now the bolder power of Parliament was over- 
ruling their feeble opposition. 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 179 

Meanwhile the divorce question went into another 
phase. Cranmer now came on to the scene. He was 
soon to be the chief ecclesiastical adviser of 
Henry VIII. He consulted the chief univer- question laid 
sities of Europe on the power of Pope Julius to universities 
dispense with the divine law, and so upon the b y Cranmer. 
validity of the marriage with Catherine. The Universi- 
ties gave their opinions very much according to the in- 
fluence brought upon them. The English and French 
were most in favour of Henry VIII.'s views. The opinions 
were laid before parliament in 1 531, but nothing further 
was done that year. 

In its next two sessions this celebrated parliament 
proceeded step by step with ecclesiastical Further 
reforms. The greatest of all legislative reforms - 
scandals, benefit of clergy, was curtailed. Payment of 
annates to Rome was forbidden. Appeals 
to Rome were abolished. Heretics were still decfarecF 
to be burned, but speaking against the Pope headofth- 
was declared no longer to be heresy. The Church of" 
king's assent was made necessary to ecclesi- instead of, 
astical ordinances. The Pope's jurisdiction the Pope - 
in England was abolished and transferred to the king. 
Lastly he assumed the title of supreme head of the 
Church of England, which was finally confirmed by Par- 
liament in 1534. 

The king meanwhile determined to deal with his own 
marriage. In defiance of the Pope, he married The king 
Anne Boleyn in January 1532-3. The marriage AnneBo 
with Catherine was declared null and void by leyn. The 
Cranmer, now Archbishop of Canterbury, and England 
by act of parliament. Thus the breach with f rom Rome 

T-. ! 1- 1 T 1 •. . 1S n0W COm - 

Rome was complete. England had, in fact, pieted. 
revolted from the ecclesiastical empire, by the joint action 



1 80 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. 



hi. 



of king and parliament, and with the assent, however re- 
luctant, even of the clergy. 

(h) Heresy still punished in England. 

Now it will be observed that all this came to pass 

without any change of religious creed, without England 

becoming Lutheran or Protestant. All the while heresy 

was a crime against which king and parliament and 

There had clergy were equally severe. The breach with 

been no Rome made no difference on this point, ex- 

change of r 3 

religious cept that speaking against the Pope was no 

longer heresy. There was as stern a deter- 

Heretics still . ° _ 

persecuted, initiation as ever to prevent the spread of 
themTit^ii heresy in England. Wolsey's dying advice 
the transia- ' to Henry VIII. in November 1530 was not to 
New Testa- let the new pernicious sect of the Lutherans 
ment. spread in England. Tindal, the noble single- 

minded Englishman to whom we owe the first translation 
of the New Testament into English, was all this while 
watched and tracked and persecuted from place to place 
as a dangerous foe. Fired with zeal by reading the New 
Testament of Erasmus, to give the English people access 
to its truths in the l vulgar tongue,' he pursued his ob- 
ject with a heroism and patriotism which should make his 
name dear to Englishmen. Strange was it that one of 
his persecutors was Sir Thomas More, who, in his ' Uto- 
pia,' had expressed views in favour of religious toleration. 
It was just after the sack of Rome that More pub- 
lished his opinion that heresy, being dangerous to the 
Sir Thomas state, ought to be punished in England, lest 
gainst zeal it should lead to similar results to those it had 
heresy. \ e & to on the Continent. It was only a few 

months after, that when, on the fall of Wolsey in 1529, he 
was made lord chancellor, he had to swear by his oath of 
office, amongst other things, to carry out the laws against 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. i8r 

.heresy. He became now, by virtue of his office, the public 
prosecutor of heretics. The bishops were his most active 
police, and ever and anon poor men were handed over to 
him for examination and legal punishment. The times 
were barbarous. Torture was used in the examination 
of criminals and of heretics also, and, it can hardly be 
doubted, even in the presence of Sir Thomas More. Yet, 
in a certain way, M ore's gentleness showed itself even in 
persecution. By the law of the land, heretics must abjure 
or be burned. More tried hard to save both their bodies 
and souls. He used every means in his power to induce 
them to abjure. During the first two years of his chan- 
cellorship he staved off the evil day. Every single heretic 
.abjured ; no single fire had yet been lit in Smithfield 
during his rule ; but, in the last six months of it, three 
abjured heretics relapsing into heresy were burned under 
Iris authority, the dying martyrs' prayers rising from the 
stake, 'May the Lord forgive Sir Thomas More!' 'May 
ihe Lord open the eyes of Sir Thomas More ! ' 

Strange was it that during these sad months, while 
.More was persecuting others for conscience sake, he him- 
.self had to choose between his own conscience and 
death. 

(z) Execution of Sir Thomas More (1535). 

We have seen that he had come to the conviction that 
the Pope was head of the Church by divine authority. 
He had held his post of Lord Chancellor so More him _ 
long as the action of Parliament involved self has to 
only the much needed reform of ecclesias- conscience 
tical abuses — till 1532. But so soon as, in sake - 
1532, he saw the breach with Rome was inevitable, and 
that Henry VIII. would delay no longer, he resigned the 
seals and retired into the bosom of his home at Chelsea 
— that home which Erasmus had made known all over 



^ 



1 82 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

Europe as a pattern in respect of domestic virtue, culture, 
and happiness. 

More had firmly told the king that he disapproved of 
the divorce, both before and after he was lord chancellor. 
He declined to be present at Anne Boleyn's coronation ; 
and when warned and threatened by order of the king, 
his brave reply was that threats were arguments for 
children, not for Mm. When the oath acknowledging 
Anne Boleyn as the lawful wife of Henry VIII. was ad- 
ministered to him, he refused to take it. Bishop Fisher 
alone among the whole bench of bishops did 

More and , ° , _. , , r . 

Fisher sent the same. More and Fisher were therefore 
tothe Tower. sen t to the Tower. 

Himself in prison for conscience sake, More's thoughts 
turned to the heretics against whom he had been so 
zealous ; and he left a paper for his friends warning them 
if ever, by reason of their office, they had to punish others, 
not to let their zeal outrun their charity. It was, per- 
haps, a confession that it had been so with him. He pon- 
dered also on the divisions in the Church, and expressed 
his hopes that after all there might be a reconciliation 
between Catholics and Protestants. 

His wife visited him in prison, and reminded him of 
his home and his peril in not taking the oath. ' Good 
Mistress Alice,' he replied to her, f tell me one thing : Is 
not this house as nigh heaven as mine own ? ' 

His beloved daughter Margaret Roper visited him 
often, and the story of his love for her and her daughterly 
affection for him, has become a favourite theme of his- 
torians, painters, and poets. 

His trial, like that of the Duke of Buckingham, was a 
typical Tudor trial. It was not a question of guilt or 
innocence, but of state necessity. Anne Boleyn's star 
being in the ascendant, Sir Thomas More and Bishop 
Fisher must die. 

This is Mr. Froude's account of More's death : 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 183 

* The four days which remained to him he spent in 
' prayer, and in severe bodily discipline. On the night of 

< the 5th. of July, although he did not know Execution of 
1 the time which had been fixed for his exe- Sir Thomas 

i cution, yet, with an instinctive feeling that 
1 it was near, he sent his daughter Margaret his hair- 
1 shirt and whip, as having no more need of them, with a 
' parting blessing of affection. 

1 He then lay down and slept quietly. At daybreak 
' he was awoke by the entrance of Sir Thomas Pope, who 
f had come to confirm his anticipations, and to tell him 
' that it was the king's pleasure that he should suffer at 
' 9 o'clock that morning. He received the news with 
i utter composure. "I am much bounden to the king," 
1 he said, " for the benefits and honours he has bestowed 
'"upon me ; 'and, so help me God, most of all am I 
' "bounden to him that it pleaseth his Majesty to rid 

< " me shortly out of the miseries of this present world." 

' Pope told him the king desired he would not use 
1 many words on the scaffold. " Mr. Pope," he answered, 
' " you do well to give me warning ; for, otherwise, I had 
' " purposed somewhat to have spoken, but no matter 
1 " wherewith his grace should have cause to be offended. 
' " Howbeit, whatever I intended, I shall obey his High- 
' " riess' command." 

' He afterwards discussed the arrangements for his 
' funeral, at which he begged that his family might be 
' present ; and when all was settled, Pope rose to leave 
'him. He was an old friend. He took.More's hand 
' and wrung it, and, quite overcome, burst into tears. 

' " Quiet yourself, Mr. Pope," More said, " and be not 
' " discomfited, for I trust we shall once see each other 
' " full merrily, when we shall live and love together in 
' " eternal bliss." 

' So about 9 of the clock he was brought by the 



1 84 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

i lieutenant out of the Tower, his beard being long, 
' which fashion he had never before used — his face pale 
' and lean, carrying in his hands a red cross, casting his 
' eyes often toward heaven. He had been unpopular as 
1 a judge, and one or two persons in the crowd were in- 
' solent to him ; but the distance was short, and soon 
1 over, as all else was nearly over now. 

' The scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and shook 
' as he placed his foot upon the ladder. " See me safe 
' " up," he said to Kingston ; " for my coming down I 
' " can shift for myself." He began to speak to the 
' people, but the sheriff begged him not to proceed ; and 
1 he contented himself with asking for their prayers, and 
1 desiring them to bear witness for him that he died in 
1 the faith of the holy Catholic Church, and a faithful 
' servant of God and the king. He then repeated the 

* Miserere Psalm on his knees ; and when he had ended 
1 and had risen, the executioner, with an emotion which 
' promised ill for the manner in which his part would be 
1 accomplished, begged his forgiveness. More kissed 
( him. " Thou art to do me the greatest benefit that I 
1 " can receive," he said ; " pluck up thy spirit, man, and 
' " be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very 

* " short ; take heed, therefore, that thou strike not awry 
' " for saving of thine honesty." The executioner offered 

* to tie his eyes. " I will cover them myself," he said ; 
' and, binding them in a cloth which he had brought 
' with him, he knelt and laid his head upon the block. 
' The fatal stroke was about to fall, when he signed for a 
' moment's delay, while he moved aside his beard. 

' " Pity that should be cut," he murmured, " that has 
' " not committed treason." With which strange words — 
' the strangest, perhaps, ever uttered at such a time — the 
1 lips famous through Europe for eloquence and wisdom 
1 closed for ever.' 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 185 

(k) Death of Erasmus (1536). 

The news of the death of Sir Thomas More in 1535 
reached Erasmus in old age and suffering from illness, 
but labouring still with his pen to the last. „ 

tt ■ • ii i , ■n ■ r 1 Erasmus 

He was writing a book on the ' Purity of the dies soon 
Church/ and in the preface he described his aften 
friend as ' a soul purer than snow.' He lived only a few 
months longer, died in 1536, and was buried in the 
cathedral at Basle with every token of respect. 

Not forty years had passed since Erasmus had first 
met Colet at Oxford, and since the three Oxford students, 
whom for the sake of distinction we have m , , _ 

n i ^ r i -r^ r ■ • i i Iheworkor 

called the Oxford Reformers, joined heart the Oxford 
and soul in that fellow-work which had caught Jadprof 8 
its inspiration from Florence. How much duced great 
had come out of their fellow-work ! Colet, 
the one who brought the inspiration from Florence, had 
died in 15 19, before the crisis came. But even then the 
work of the Oxford Reformers was already in one sense 
done. They had sown their seed. The New Testament 
of Erasmus was already given to the world, and nothing 
had so paved the way for the Protestant Reformation as 
that great work had done. Since Colel's k death, Erasmus 
and More had never met. Each had taken his own line. 
More was driven far further into reaction than Erasmus. 
After the Peasants' War and the sack of Rome, Erasmus 
still preached tolerance on the one hand, and satirized 
the monks and schoolmen on the other hand. And his 
satire was just as bitter in these later writings as it had 
been in the ' Praise of Folly.' But he too, like More, 
held on to their old hatred of schism, preached concord 
to the Church, and longed for a reconciliation between 
the contending parties. 



1 86 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

(/) Dissolution of the Monasteries, and Reform of the 

Utiiversities (1536). 

The bitter satire of Erasmus upon the monks bore fruit 

sooner than he himself expected, and especially in Eng- 

The work set land. The necessity of a thorough reform in 

a going by the monasteries was now everywhere acknow- 

the Oxford ,,,,-, -, 

Reformers ledged, and there was no longer any reason to 
goes on. wa - t £ Qr ^ijg f rom Rome before beginning the 

work. The king was in a mood to humble the monks. 
The bishops and secular clergy had bowed their heads to 
the royal supremacy. The time now of the monks and. 
abbots had come. 

Within a few months of More's death, a commission 

was issued by Thomas Cromwell (the minister 

now m ecciesi- wno was now vicegerent of the new royal 

astical minis- ecclesiastical authority), for a general visitation 

ter of Henry r . J n b 

viii., en- of the monasteries. 

thestate'of ^he P°P u l ar complaints against them were 

the monas- not found to be baseless. Scandal had long 
been busy about the morals of the monks. 
The commissioners found them on enquiry worse even 
than scandal had whispered, and reported to Parliament 
that two-thirds of the monks were leading vicious lives, 
under cover of their cowls and hoods. 

Erasmus, in his 'Colloquies,' had spread all over 
Europe his suspicions that the relics by which the monks 
attracted so many pilgrims, and so much wealth in offer- 
ings to their shrines, were false and their miracles pre- 
And into tended. He had visited and described both 

shrines and the two great English shrines of ' St. Thomas 
a Becket ' and ' Our Lady of Walsingham/ 
and had dared to hint that the congealed milk of the 
Virgin exhibited at the one was a mixture of chalk and 
white of egg, and that the immense wealth of the other 
would be of more use if given to the poor. The result of 



ch. ii. Revolt of England from Rome. 187 

the royal enquiry convinced Henry VIII. that the 'milk of 
our Lady' was ' chalk or white lead/ and that Thomas 
aBecketwas no saint at all, but a rebel against the royal 
prerogative of Henry II. 

The result of the visitation was the dissolution at once 
of the smaller, and a few years afterwards of x>i sso i ut i n 
the larger monasteries, the monks being ofthemonas- 

1 ' rr i-i • 1 r i ■ tenes and 

pensioned off, and the remainder of their vast destruction 
estates being vested in the king. of shrines. 

The universities as well as the monasteries were visited 
by the Commissioners, and that reform was carried out 
at the universities which Colet, forty years be- R e f orm f 
fore, had begun at Oxford ; a reform which the Univer- 
converted them from schools of the old into 
schools of the new learning. ' The learning of the whole- 
some doctrines of Almighty God and the three tongues, 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which be requisite for the 
understanding of Scripture,' were specially enjoined, while 
the old scholastic text-books became waste paper and 
were treated as such. 

These were the final labours of the memorable Parlia- 
ment which began in 1529, accomplished the „ ,. 

. -o j •.• t j Parliament 

revolt from Rome, and was now dissolved of 1529-36 

in 1536. dissolved. 

One step further the Reformation went under Cran- 
mer and Cromwell. In 1536 the Scriptures Tindal' s 
themselves, in the English translation of ^BftlT * 
Tindal, revised and completed by Coverdale, sanctioned. 
were ordered to be placed in every church, and the clergy 
were instructed to exhort all men to read them. Thus 
England owes the basis of her noble translation of the 
Bible to William Tindal. He lived to see it Martyrdom 
thus published by royal authority, but soon of Tindal. 
after fell a victim to persecution in Flanders, and ended 
his heroic life in a martyr's death. 



1 88 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

(m) Later Years of Henry VIII. (i 536—1 547). 

In 1536 Queen Catherine died, and in the same year 
„ . the still more miserable Anne Boleyn was 

Execution ' J 

«f Anne divorced, and, with the partners of her alleged 

Boleyn. gu[l ^ beheaded> 

The sole offspring of this ill-fated marriage was the 
Princess Elizabeth, and she now, like the Princess Mary, 
was declared illegitimate, and thus the succession was 
again uncertain. 

Henry viii. To meet this difficulty the king married 

janTley- *" s tn i r d queen, Jane Seymour, and parlia- 
mour. ment settled the succession upon her offspring, 

and in default of a direct heir, upon such person as Henry 
VIII. should name in his will. 

Meanwhile, this time of renewed unsettlement was 
chosen by the papal party for a general rebellion, known 
A Catholic as ' The Pilgrimage of Grace? Reforms had 
rebellion gone too fast for many. It was not to be 

breaks out , , . , , , 

in the expected that so great a change should meet 

.North, vi'iXh. no opposition. It would have been 

strange if Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher had been 
the only martyrs on the papal side. The rebellion was 
chiefly in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. It was headed by 
some of the old aristocracy, and no doubt was fomented 
by the issue just before of a papal bull of excommunication 
fomented by against Henry VIII., and by expectations of 
and ReS- foreign aid. Reginald Pole, a relation of the 
naid Pote. king's, and afterwards legate and Cardinal 
Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Mary, did his 
best, under papal encouragement, to bring about a holy 
^war against England, and thereby enforce obedience to 
the papal power. But these schemes of war 

It is quelled. . r r . . r . , . . 

from without came to nought, and the insur- 
rection within was promptly met and quelled. The royal 



ch. ir. Revolt of England from Rome. 1 89 

supremacy was vindicated by the execution of the chief 
rebels, and the Catholic reaction thus postponed till the 
days of Queen Mary. 

Probably the birth at this moment of a long- desired 
prince (afterwards Edward VI.), did as much as the 
execution of the rebels to assure the stability Birth of 
of Henry's throne. But it cost the life of the JncTdeath of' 
queen-mother, and made another marriage a the Queen. 
state necessity. While Cromwell was pursuing his 
policy, dissolving the remaining monasteries, Henry VIIL 
demolishing the shrines of Walsingham and "nneof 
Canterbury, and transferring their wealth to the Cieves, 
royal exchequer, he had once more to arrange a match for 
Henry. His choice fell upon Anne of Cieves, a connexion 
of the Elector of Saxony. It fell in with Cromwell's 
policy to use t^he opportunity to bring about a Protestant 
alliance, and Henry married in 1539 Anne of Cieves. 

But how was it likely that he should fall in love with 
a fourth wife who was plain-looking and spoke not a word 
of English ? He soon was weary of his new but does 
match, and as Wolsey was sacrificed to secure like her. 
the divorce of Catherine, so Cromwell was now sacri- 
ficed to secure a divorce from Anne of Cieves. Cromwell 
Another Tudor trial, with less show of justice sacri fi ce <i to 

, ' J get rid 01 

even than those of the Duke of Buckingham her. 
and Sir Thomas More, paved the way for the state ne- 
cessity. Cromwell, like Cranmer, had been all along half 
a Protestant at heart. Unless he had been, he could 
hardly' have carried through as he did for the king, the 
successful revolt of England from the ecclesiastical empire 
of Rome. The king had profited by that, but he now 
meant to profit by Cromwell's fall. So Cromwell died 
upon the scaffold as a traitor. 

Henry was soon rid of Anne of Cieves. The Pro- 
testant alliance fell through. A sort of reconciliation was 



190 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

made with Charles V., who naturally hated Cromwell 
more even than he had distrusted Wolsey. And a sort 
Reconcilia- °^ c °l° ur °f religion was given to the whole 
tion with proceeding by the more stringent repression 
of- those heresies towards which the fallen 
minister was said to have been unduly lenient. This 
was in 1540. 

The king now married the guilty and unfortunate 
Catherine Howard, whose turn to die on the scaffold 
Henry came (so soon !) in 1 542 ; and then at last 

viii.'s last came the final marriage with Catherine Parr, 

two mar- ° ' 

riages. a virtuous widow, who proved an honourable 

and efficient royal nurse during the king's few remaining 
years. 

These years of his decaying health were marked by 
the renewal of the alliance with Charles V. and breaches 
Alliance of peace with Francis I. Henry's foreign 

with Spam, policy ended as it had begun under the 

and wars xr J e> 

with France, shadow of Spanish ascendancy, threatened 
English invasion of France, French retaliative invasions 
of England, and financial difficulties which always fol- 
lowed in the wake of war. The treasures of Henry VII. 
sufficed not to supply the means for Henry VIII.'s 
"Want of early wars with France. So again, in spite of 

money. the wealth which came to the Crown from the 

dissolution of monasteries and the destruction of the 
shrines, the king in his last years found himself with an 
empty exchequer, and obliged to debase the coinage to 
Death of obtain the supplies he wanted. He died in 
Henry viil. Jan. 1 547— the year after the death of Luther, 
just as civil war broke out in Germany, and 
Charles V. set about conquering Germany with his 
Spanish soldiers. 

While Germany was passing through this struggle, 
England was becoming more and more Protestant, under 



CH. II. 



Revolt of England from Rome. 10)\ 



the guidance of Cranmer, who managed the Reform goes 
ecclesiastical affairs of England in the short °he reigrfof 
reign of Edward VI. Edward VI. 

But a reaction was to follow. On Edward VI.'s 
death in 1553 the Princess Mary became catholic 
queen. A Catholic herself, and the wife of reacti °n 

1 ' under Queen 

Philip II. of Spain, she restored the Catholic Mary. 
faith in England, and tried to quench the English 

Protestant spirit in blood. But she died in 1558 — the 
same year as Charles V. — and under her 

successor, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, becomes 

the revolt of England from Rome became pJl^jL. t 

once for all an established fact. Thence- under Queen 
forth, both in politics and in doctrine, Eng- 
land was a Protestant state. 

{11) Influence of Henry VIII? s reign on the English 
Constitution. 

It has been sometimes said that Henry VIII.'s reign 
was the reign of a tyrant, and that during his reign the 
English parliament was subservient and cring- 

^ , How far the 

ing 10 the monarch. constitution 

To judge of this matter rightly we must ^ned*"* 1 " 
remember that England was passing through 
a great crisis in her history which we have likened to that 
which was marked by the Diet of Worms in German 
history. How different the English from the German 
result ! At the Diet of Worms the Emperor The revolt 
and princes acted in opposition to the Ger- from Rome 

r . accom- 

man people ; the necessary reforms were not plishedby 
made, and so there came revolution. In the tSnaf"" 
parliament of 1529-36 the king and House means. 
of Commons 'acted together, and made the necessary 
reforms ; the clergy submitted to them when they saw 
they must, the dissolution of the monasteries removed 



192 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

the abbots from the House of Lords and placed the lay 
lords in a majority, and so in the end England was freed 
from the yoke of the ecclesiastical empire of Rome by 
constitutional . means, without the revolutions and civil 
wars whicn followed in Germany. 

That such a revolution was peaceably wrought by 

wer of P arnament under the guidance of the king's 

parliament ministers, Cromwell and Cranmer, was a fact 

maintame . ^fch sustained by most important precedents 

the power of parliament in the constitution. 

During his wars, Henry VIII.'s ministers, especially 
Wolsey, resorted to benevolences and forced loans to 
it preserved obtain supplies. But the fall of Wolsey, 

its control an( ^ Q 2ater occasions the sanction of par- 
over taxa- r 
tion. liament obtained afterwards by way of indem- 
nity for acts admitted to be illegal, kept up the con- 
stitutional principle that the king could levy no taxes 
without the consent of parliament. The real struggle on 
this matter came in the days of the Stuarts. 

The new ecclesiastical powers of the king as supreme 
head of the Church gave rise to new branches of juris- 
. , , diction, some of which were of a dangerous 

And over the ' ° 

making of kind. Parliament also, by statute, gave to the 
new laws. king's proclamation, within a very restricted 
range, the force of statutes, but this was repealed in 
the next reign. And on the whole, the second great 
constitutional principle on which English freedom is 
based was well maintained ; viz., that the king could 
make no new laws without consent of parliament. 

Bearing these things in mind it would be hard to 
On the deny that the parliaments of Henry VIII. 

whole the deserve tolerably well of Englishmen, con- 

parhaments . . J , ° . . / 

of Henry sidermg the greatness of the crisis through 
serve well of which the bark of the state had to be steered 
Englishmen. j n their time. 



ch. in. Denmark and Sweden. 193 

The greatest blots upon the reign of Henry VIII. were 
the unjust trials for treason by which the most faithful 
of ministers were sacrificed to clear away Unjust 
obstacles to royal policy, and the way in the chief S 
which justice was sacrificed to the personal h[ ^ 1 on } he 

J r i reign ol 

wishes or, even passions of the king in con- Henry vin. 
nexion with his unhappy matrimonial caprices. 

These things will always stain the memory of Henry 
VIII., but regarding his reign as a whole it would be 
unfair to forget that in it a great crisis was E n „i an( j 
passed through without civil war, which left fared much 
England freed from the ecclesiastical empire France and 
of Rome, and under a constitutional monarchy, s P ain - 
while France and Spain were left to struggle for centuries 
more under the double tyranny of the ecclesiastical em- 
pire and their own absolute kings. 



CHAPTER III. 



REVOLT OF DENMARK AND SWEDEN AND (LATER) OF 
THE NETHERLANDS. 

(a) Denmark and Sweden (1525-1560). 

Denmark and Sweden both revolted from Rome, but 
under peculiar circumstances. From 1520 to 1525 they 
had both been governed by one king — a 
wretched tyrant— Christian II., who legally mark and" 
had little power, but following the royal f^^ff 
fashion of the day, tried to make himself an the yoke of 
absolute monarch. Denmark and Sweden another? 
both rebelled, dethroned Christian II., and se P arate - 
then went their several ways. 

In Sweden the people, i.e. the citizens and the 




194 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

peasantry, were sick of the tyranny of their nobles and 
The Swedes clergy, as well as their king, and sighed for a 
tavSs Vasa g° od kin g stron g enough to curb them. It 
their king. wa s the old story, what the citizens and pea- 
santry of Germany had long sighed for in vain. But in 
Sweden they got what they wanted. They elected as king 
Gustavus Vasa, a noble who had taken the popular side 
against their former tyrant ; and having elected him, they 
backed him in carrying out in Sweden very much the 
Sweden same sort of reforms as Henry VIII. had 

under him, carried out in England. The clergy were 

becomes a , - , , . . , , , 

Protestant humbled, their property seized by the crown, 
nation. an( j Sweden, roused to a sense of national 

life under Gustavus Vasa, took its place among modern 
nations. It was soon to play a prominent part in the 
great struggle between Catholic and Protestant powers. 
The Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, was the greatest 
of the Protestant leaders in the Thirty Years' War. 

In Denmark also (and Norway was under the same 
crown) a new monarchy succeeded to that of the expelled 
Denmark tyrant. The nobles joined the crown in crush- 
also, under ing the power of the clergy. The Danish 

her new king, ., - .. , , , . _ 

becomes " monarchy became established on the rums of 
Protestant. ^ church. Lutheranism was encouraged. 
Denmark became a Protestant state, and took part, like 
Sweden, on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' War. 



(b) The Revolt of the Netherlands (1581). 

The last of the revolts from Rome was that of the 
Netherlands. It was a revolt not only from Rome but 
also from Spain. It does not fall altogether within the 
limits of the era, and so requires only brief notice here. 

Philip II., king of Spain and husband of the English 
queen Mary, tried to enforce the double yoke of Spain 



ch. in. The Genevan Reformers. 195 

and Rome upon the Netherlanders. The Netherlands, 
it will be remembered, belonged to the Burgundian pro- 
vinces which came to the Spanish crown by p n C y of 
the marriage alliance of the mother of Charles pl ? i . li P n - to 
V. He was a Netherlander,, and as such Nether- 
popular ; but his son, Philip II., was a Span- spainand to 
iard, and felt to be a foreign tyrant. He had Rome, 
entered into close alliance with Rome. If he could, he 
would have conquered all countries which had revolted 
from Rome ; and in restoring them to Rome, he would 
have liked to have made them into Spanish provinces. 
It was in pursuance of these ideas that he encouraged 
Queen Mary's restoration of the Catholic faith in Eng 
land, and sent his c Spanish Armada ' to conquer the 
Protestant Queen Elizabeth. In the same spirit he sent 
his cruel minister, the Duke of Alva, to force into sub- 
mission his rebellious subjects in the Netherlands, and to 
fasten on their necks the double yoke of Spain and Rome. 
The result was the revolt of the Netherlands They revolt, 
under the Prince of Orange. After a terrible United 
struggle, it was at last successful, and ended Provinces' 
in the complete escape of the northern pro- Protestant 
vinces from both the Spanish and Papal yoke. natl0n - 
This was in 1581. Fuom that date the ' United Provinces' 
took their place, like Sweden and Denmark,, among the 
Protestant nations of Europe. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE. GENEVAN REFORMERS.. 

(a) Rise of a new School of Reform (1536-1541). 

The force of the Protestant Revolution was not wholly 
spent in these national revolts; from Rome; 



196 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. 



hi. 



Altogether apart from them there was a Protestant 
A Protestant movement going on in the minds of the 
movement people, both in those nations which revolted 

which was r r " 

not national, from Rome and in those which did not. 

We must now turn our attention to the rise of a new 
school of reform, which led to remarkable results. Luther 
was too national— too German — a reformer, to admit of 
but which ^is becoming the universal prophet of Pro- 
influenced testantism all over the world. Denmark, 
testants'of Sweden, and Norway, coming under German 
France influence, did indeed become Lutheran ; but 

England, ' ' 

Scotland, the Protestants of France, England, Scotland, 

and America , . , .. 

more than and America are not and never have been 
Luther did. Lutherans. They came more under the in- 
fluence of the Genevan reformers, of whom we must now 
speak. 

(b) John Calvin (1 509-1 564). 

The chief of these was Joint Calvin. He was a 
Frenchman, born in 1509, and so was twenty- five years 
John Calvin, younger than Luther. He was educated at the 
bom 1509. universities of Paris and Orleans, adopted 
the Augustinian theology, as Wiclif, Huss, and Luther 
had done before him, and became a Protestant. In 
France heretics were burned, so he left his home to 
travel in Italy and Germany. In 1536, just as Erasmus 
was passing to his rest, he came to Basle, and began his 
His ' In- public work as a Protestant reformer by pub- 

stitutes,' lishing his 'Institutes of the Christian Re- 

which gave . . ° 

logical form ligion.' It was these ' Institutes ' of Calvin 
• Caivinistic ' which gave rigid logical scholastic form to 
doctrines. those Augustinian doctrines which, as we 
have said, were held in common by most Protestant 
reformers from Wiclif to Luther, but which have been 
since called ' Caivinistic' He differed from Luther both 



ch. iv. The Genevan Reformers. 197 

in theory and practice, on those points about which 
Zwingle and Luther had quarrelled. He rejected tran- 
s instantiation, which Luther did not altogether ; and he 
founded his Church, like Zwingle, on the republican basis 
of the congregation rather than, as Luther did, on the 
civil power of the prince. He thus was in a sense more 
Protestant than Luther, though at that time only the 
Lutherans were called Protestants. 

Geneva soon became the sphere of his actions. It 
was in a state of anarchy, having rebelled from its bishop, 
who had been practically both ecclesiastical , Calvin 
and civil ruler in one. Other French re- settles at 
formers had settled at Geneva before Calvin, 
and these shared his stern Protestant doctrines. But 
Calvin soon proved the most powerful preacher. Like 
Savonarola, he rebuked the vices of the people Becomes a 
from the pulpit. At first this made him un- kind of dic- 

, ,, , , . . tator of the 

popular, and he was driven away ; but m Genevan 
1 541 he was recalled by the people, and made state ' 
practically both civil and religious dictator of the little 
state. 

He was in a sense Protestant Pope of Geneva, but de- 
riving his power from the congregation. He and his consis- 
tory held it their duty to force men to lead moral His severe 
lives, go to church, give up dice, dancing, fnd m- ne 
swearing, and so forth ; and the council of the tolerance, 
city supported this severe exercise of ecclesiastical power 
by their civil authority. Thus for twenty years Geneva 
was under the rule of Calvin and his fellow ' saints ; ' and 
an intolerant despotic rule it was. Men were excom- 
municated for insulting Calvin, and sent to prison for 
mocking at his sermons. To impugn his doctrine was 
death or banishment. Hired spies watched people's con- 
duct, and every unseemly word dropped in the street 
came to the ear of the elders. Children were liable to 



198 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

public punishment for insulting their parents, and men 
and women were drowned in the Rhone for sensual sins. 
Witchcraft and heresy were capital crimes ; and one 
heretic, Servetus, was burned, with his books hung to his 
girdle, for honest difference of opinion from Calvin on an 
abstruse point of divinity. 

The same view of the functions of the Church which 
led him to exercise this severe discipline, led him also to 
He founds control education. He founded academies 
schools. anc [ sc hools ; and when his system was ap- 

plied to Scotland, as it afterwards was under John Knox, 
a school as well as a church was planted in every parish. 



(c) Influence of the Genevan School on Western 
Protestantisjn. 

Whatever Calvin did at Geneva would have mattered 
little to the world if it had stopped there ; but it did 
His in- n °k The historical importance of Calvin 

fluence on lies in the fact that he impressed upon 
Protestant- Western Protestantism his rigid scholastic 
lsm - creed and his views of ecclesiastical discipline. 

The Protestants of France, called Huguenots, were 
and are mainly the offspring of Calvinism. John Knox, 
The French tne reformer of Scotland, and the Scotch 
Huguenots, Covenanters, were also disciples of Calvin ; 
Covenan- and so Scotch Protestantism received its im- 
Eno'iSf press from Geneva. The Puritans of Eng- 

Pnritans, land were also Calvinists. Cromwell was a 

the 'Pilgrim „,.. ,, , r . . . , 

Fathers' of Calvmist, and the rule of his ' saints was on 
land! aifSf the Geneva model. The Pilgrim Fathers took 
the Genevan with them from England to the New England 
across the Atlantic the Calvinistic creed, and, 
alas ! its intolerance too. So engrained was it in their 
theological mind that, even though themselves fleeing 



ch. v. Reform within the Catholic Church. 199 

from persecution, they themselves persecuted in the land 
of their refuge. Under the rule of the Boston saints there 
was as little religious liberty as under the rule of Calvin 
at Geneva. 

Nevertheless, the offspring of the Geneva school of 
reform deserve well of history. However narrow and 
hard in their creed and Puritanic in their man- Their his- 
ners, they were men of a sturdy Spartan type, toncal im - 
ready to bear any amount of persecution and and in- 
to push through any difficulties, democratic national 011 
in their spirit and aggressive in their zeal, character. 
The banishment of the Huguenots from France took 
away the backbone of her religious life. Scotland would 
not be what she is but for Knox and his parish schools. 
England could not afford to lose the Puritan blood which 
mixes in her veins. New England owes a rich inheritance 
of stern virtues to her * Pilgrim Fathers.' 



CHAPTER V. 

REFORM WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

(a) The Italian Reformers {to 1541). 

One of the results of the Protestant revolution was 
the reform of the Catholic Church itself. 

We ought never to forget that the Roman Catholic 
Church of our own times is, in fact, a reformed Church 
as well as the Protestant Churches. And we must now 
have patience enough to trace how and by whom its re- 
form was effected. 

Good men of all parties had for long seen the neces- 
sity of a practical reform in the morals of the pope, 



200 Results of the Protestant Revolution, ft. hi. 

clergy, and monks. And we have seen that the neces- 
sity was recognised in high quarters. Ferdinand and 
Isabella's great minister, Cardinal Ximenes, and the 
Efforts at English ministers, Cardinal Morton and Cardi- 
reform with- na [ Wolsey — three cardinals all of great power 
Church. and undoubted loyalty to Rome — even went so 

far as to get bulls from the Pope, authorising them to 
visit and reform the monasteries. All good men cried 
out against the crimes of such a pope as Alexander VI. 
And it is not right to charge the Catholic Church whole- 
sale with these crimes any more than it would be to 
charge the English nation with the matrimonial sins of 
Henry VIII. 

There was so strong a feeling all through the Church 
against these scandals that, after what had happened, 
improve- they were not likely to occur again. The 

character of popes who came after Alexander VI. were 
popes. no t angels, but they were outwardly more 

decent than he, at all events. Julius II., as we have seen, 
was the fighting pope. The scandal in his case was his lust 
of war and the extension of the Papal territory. Leo X. 
cared more for art and literature than for war, but he, 
too, had his faults, and the scandal in his case was a 
doubt whether, after all, he really believed in Chris- 
tianity. Adrian VI. was an earnest and stern moral re- 
former — too stern for the times — and his reign was too 
short to produce much result. Clement VII. was a better 
man than many, though of blundering politics, letting 
down the Papal power, and becoming at last the prisoner 
and the tool of his Spanish conqueror, Charles V. 

All this while there were men in Italy of earnest 
Christian feeling who, like the Oxford reformers, were 
men of the new school on the one hand, and opposed to 
the semi-pagan scepticism of the mere l humanists ' of 
Italy on the other hand. These men longed for reform, 



ch. v. Reform within the Catholic Church. 201 

not only in morals but also in doctrine. They wanted 
religion to be made a thing of the heart, that Themedk- 
the gross superstition connected with indul- ^"f s re [ or " 
gences and other abuses should be set aside, Italy. 
and some of them held the Augustinian doctrine of justi- 
fication by faith. This gave them a sort of sympathy 
even with- Luther, and they wanted such a reform of 
the Church as they hoped would win back the Protes- 
tants into her fold. "Yuan de Valdez, brother 

<■ ^i 1 tt , ,r 1 • Valdez, 

of Charles V. s secretary (from whose writ- Pole, Con- 
ings we have more than once quoted), was tarmi - 
one of them. Reginald Pole (who opposed Henry VIII.'s 
revolt from Rome so strongly) and Gaspar Contarini (a 
Venetian nobleman of the highest character and influence 
in court circles) were of their number. They had among 
them eloquent preachers and ladies of rank, fortune, and 
beauty. They held together and exerted much influence, 
and there was a time when they seemed to be not without 
chance of success as mediators between the extreme 
Catholic and Protestant parties. 

Paul III. became pope in 1534, and the hopes of the 
reform party were raised by his making Pole and Con- 
tarini and some others of their friends car- p au i hl 
dinals. These men were on the most friendly °} a i es some 
terms with Erasmus, who in his old age was cardinals, 
urging concord on religious parties and purity on the 
Church. It was rumoured that Erasmus himself was to 
be made a cardinal, and it was said that a red hat was 
on the way to Bishop Fisher when he was executed by 
Henry VIII. 

It was some of these and other signs of the times 
which cheered Sir Thomas More in his prison with the 
belief that better days were coming, that there was at 
least some chance of a reconciliation with the Protestants, 
and a healing of the schism by which the Church was 



202 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

rent. The prospect was for the moment promising. Paul 

III. wrote to Erasmus, telling him that he intended to 

call a council (as Erasmus had urged his 

Chances of a ,, • . - . n .. _ , . 

reconcilia- predecessors to do) and asking for his m- 
pJoteltlnts fluence and help both before and in the 
under Paul council. But things moved slowly. Cardinal 

Contarini was more zealous for a council than 
the Pope, who was only half-inclined to it, fearing lest 
it might abridge his power. At length in 1541 — five years 
after the death of Erasmus — the Pope deputed Contarini 

to meet the Protestants at the Diet of Ratis- 
and Melanch- bon, and to try whether a reconciliation could 
makVpea^e be arranged with them. He was met by the 
at the Diet gentle Melanchthon (Luther distrusting the 

of Ratisbon. , , , . , , . N , . 

whole thing and keeping away), and they 
agreed upon the doctrine of justification by faith as the 
basis of reunion. For a moment a peace seemed within 
reach. But alas ! other motives came in on the Pope's 
But the Pope side. Francis I. urged upon him that concord 
draws back. anc [ unity in Germany would make the Em- 
peror — their common enemy — dangerously strong ; and 
so Paul III. drew back. 

On the other side, Luther scented mischief in any 
And Luther peace with Rome. It was too good to be 
also. true . an( j kg even hinted that the devil was 

somewhere and somehow at work in it. 
Everything So everything was left over for settlement 

tie Council at tne council which now at length the Pope 
of Trent. wa s to convene — the famous Council of Trent. 

But meanwhile another power came upon the stage 
which was destined to take the reins out of the hands of 
the Italian mediating reformers, to close the door for re- 
conciliation for ever, and to reform what was left of the 
Catholic Church on the narrow basis of reaction. 



ch. v. Reform within the Catholic Church. 203 

\b) The New Order of the Society of Jesus (1540). 

Ignatius Loyola, a young Spanish knight of noble 
family, was born in 1491, and so was eight years younger 
than Luther. He was a soldier in the army Ignatius 
of Spain— that land in which the national Spanish* 
wars against the Moors had kept up chivalry knight. 
and the spirit of the old crusaders, in which knights 
still fought for the Cross against the ' Infidel/ and 
whose citizens more than any others felt the romance of 
the connexion with the New World. 

Loyola was thirty years old, fighting in the Spanish 
army against an insurrection in Navarre, secretly aided 
by the French, just after the Diet of Worms, He : 
when his leg' was shattered by a cannon ball, wounded in 
The one hope of the young knight was such a I521 ' 
recovery as would let him return to his soldier's life and 
pursue his knightly career. He submitted to two cruel 
operations in this hope, but alas, in vain. After racking 
torture and fever, which brought him near to the grave, 
he survived to find his contracted limb still a bar to his 
hopes. As he lay upon his couch in pain and fever, he 
changed the scheme of his life. He resolved R eso lves to 
to become a soldier — a general — in another become a 
army, under a higher king, fighting for the an army of 
cross. Legends of the saints inspired his steadof" 
imagination with dreams still more romantic soldiers. 
than the tales of knight-errantry. In his delirium his 
fevered eye saw visions of the Virgin, and thus he thought 
he received divine commission to pursue his plan. He 
would be a true son of the Church, the sworn enemy of 
her enemies, be they heretics, Jews, or infidels. His 
creed should be the soldier's creed — obedience to supe- 
riors, hard endurance, and dauntless courage. The holy 
saints of the legends were his patterns. He prepared 



204 Results of the Protestant Revolution. PT . fii. 

himself for his work, as they did, by fastings and the 
severest austerities. His food was bread and water and 
His austeri- herbs, his girdle sometimes an iron chain, some- 
times prickly briars, his work humble service 
of the lowest kind, such as dressing the foulest wounds in 
the hospitals. Then he dwelt for a while in a cavern in 
solitude, and fasted till he saw visions again, and fancied 
he had communications with heaven. And now be had 
perfected his plan — a soldier's plan — to found a religious 
Resolves to army, perfect in discipline, in every soldier of 
'°o?de?of which should be absolute devotion to one end, 
Jesus.' absolute obedience to his superior, with no 

human ties to hinder and no objects to divert him from 
the service required. It was in fact to be a new monastic 
order, and to be called the Society of Jesus. 

He must first prepare himself for his generalship by 
To prepare years of study. He began at a common 
himself school, and then went to the university of Paris. 

studies at , , . . 

the Univer- The next thing was to get round him a 

sity of Paris. few others like himself, and so to form the 

nucleus of his army. They must be men of power and 
mettle, and all the better if of noble blood and high 
position. 

There was a young Spanish noble at the university of 
Paris named Francis Xavier. While Loyola was study- 
At Paris m & at ^ e un i vers ity he came in contact with 

meets Fran- him. He watched him, read his mind and 
character, and then set himself to work to 
make him his own. Xavier sought fame and applause, 
and just as he got it Loyola would come in his way with 
the solemn question, ' What shall it profit if a man 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? ' Loyola 
would help him to new triumphs, but as often as they 
came would come to him again from Loyola the solemn 
question, ' What shall it profit ? ' At last the proud spirit 



ch. v. Reform within, the Catholic Church. 205 

of the Spanish noble yielded to the spell. Xavier be- 
came a disciple of Loyola; rivalled him in Xavier be- 
austerities, and ere long became the mission- disciple. 
ary of the Society, carrying his cross, breviary and 
wallet to India and the Indian Isles, and 
even to Japan and China, till at last he laid great Jesuit 
down his life after eleven long years of heroic JJe^ndS' 
labour, stretched on the sand of the sea-shore China, and 
of a lonely island in the Chinese seas, with his 
cross in his hand, tears of holy joy in his eyes, and utter- 
ing the words, ' In Thee have I put my trust, let me never 
be confounded.' 

Of such stuff were the first Jesuits made — a type of 
human nature which, rising up as it did just then, 
was of immense import to the future of the Catholic 
Church. It was in truth a reaction from the looseness 
both of morals and creed which had marked the recent 
condition of the Church. These men were character ot 
pious, earnest, and devoted to the Church, the J esuits - 
because their minds were cast in a mould which al- 
lowed them still to believe in her pretensions. They 
had all the piety, fervour, energy, and boldness of the 
Protestant Reformers, but their reform took another 
direction. Instead of going back to St. Augustine as 
their exponent of the Bible, they took St. Francis and the 
mediaeval saints as their models, and rested with abso- 
lute faith on the authority of the mediaeval Church. To 
reform the Catholic Church to mediaeval standards by the 
formation of a new monastic order, having for its corner- 
stone the absolute surrender of free enquiry and free 
thought, and absolute obedience to supreme ecclesiastical 
authority — this was the project of Loyola. It Their suc _ 
was not abortive. Before its founder died he cess and 
had succeeded in founding more than a hun- 
dred Jesuit colleges or houses for training Jesuits, and an 



206 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt, hi. 

immense number of educational establishments under 
their influence. He had many thousands of Jesuits 
in the rank and file of his order. He had divided 
Europe, India, Africa, and Brazil into twelve Jesuit pro- 
vinces, in each of which he had his Jesuit officer, whilst 
he, their general, residing at Rome, wielded an influence 
over the world rivaling, if it did not exceed in power, 
that of popes and kings. Its very success was the cause 
of its ultimate doom. The nations of Europe, after the 
Causes of its experience of some generations, found it to 
uipopu- interfere with their national freedom, as they 

larity. h ac i done the old ecclesiastical empire of 

Rome. They ultimately banished the Jesuits because 
of their power and because their presence and their 
plots endangered the safety of the state. But as 
yet the Society of Jesus was young, and had its work 
before it. The Order received Papal sanction in 1540. 



(c) The Council of Trent (1 545-1 555). 

The Council of Trent was opened in 1545. Cardinal 
Contarini, who had been the Pope's confidant in matters 
. relating to the Council, died before it assem- 

Trent meets bled. But Cardinal Pole, Contarini the 
in 1545. younger, and others of the mediating party, 

were members of the Council. They took the same line 
as at Ratisbon, and urged the doctrine of justification by 
faith as common Christian ground. But the Jesuits in 
The Jesuits *he Council, under the instructions of Loyola 
prevail over opposed it with all their might. The dispute 

the mediat- , , .. 1 , , , 

ingRefor- was long and hot, and even led to personal 
mers. violence. One holy father was so angry that 

he seized another by the beard ! The Jesuits prevailed, 
and carried the decision of the Council their own way. 
Pole, on the plea of ill health, had left the Council, and 



ch. v. Reform within, the Catholic Church. 207 

the younger Contarini followed his example. It was 
clear there was to be no reconciliation. The party of 
reaction had gained the day. 

No sooner had the party of reaction taken the lead 
than Cardinal Caraffa (afterwards Pope Paul IV.) obtained 
powers to introduce into Rome the In- inquisition 
quisition — that terrible tribunal of persecution introduced 

1 • - ^ • • i-i-i into Rome by 

which in Spam had slam and banished so Cardinal Ca- 
many Moors, Jews, and heretics under the wild^Pope 
sanction of the zeal of Queen Isabella. Per- Paul iv. 
secution began, and some of the members of the mediating 
party were among its first victims. 

This was the work of the Council of Trent at its early 
sessions. Then, owing to a disagreement between the 
Pope and Charles V., it was adjourned for council ad- 
some years. Paul III. died, and two succeed- joumed till 

J ' . 1555, under 

ing popes, before it really got to work again Paul IV. 
to any purpose under Paul IV. This was in 1555, 
the year in which, after the long struggle between 
Charles V. and Germany, the peace of Augsburg was 
come to, by which the revolt of the Protestant princes 
from Rome was first legally recognised as a thing which 
must be. 

The Council of Trent had now in its later sessions to 
reorganise what was left of the Catholic Church. It 
could not, and did not try to undo the revolts. _ ^ 

. The Roman 

The J esuits were the ruling power. Reaction Catholic 
was the order of the day. Clerical abuses formed in" 
were corrected, and some sort of decency morals, but 

r , „ . . , r , much more 

enforced. Provisions were made for the rigid than 
education of priests and for their devotion in everincreed - 
future to active duties. But in points of doctrine there was 
reaction instead of concession. The divine authority of 
the Pope was confirmed. The creed of the Church was 
laid down once for all in rigid statements, which hence- 



2o8 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

forth must be swallowed by the faithful. Finally, the 
Inquisition, imported from Spain, was extended to other 
countries, and charged with the suppression of heretical 
doctrines. In a word, the rule of the ecclesiastical 
empire was strengthened, and the bonds of the scholastic 
system tightened ; but not for Christendom — only for 
those nations who still acknowledged the ecclesiastical 
supremacy of Rome. 

The Church was thus both reformed and narrowed by 
the decrees of the Council of Trent. Henceforth it 
tolerated within its fold neither the old diversity of 
doctrine on the one hand, nor the old laxity of morals 
on the other hand, and henceforth it was by no means 
coextensive with Western Christendom, as it once had 
been. It is now generally called the 'Roman Catholic 
Church,' to distinguish it from the ' Catholic Church' 
of the Middle Ages, from which it and so many other 
churches have sprung. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FUTURE OF SPAIN AND FRANCE. 

(a) The future of Spain. 

Charles V. had inherited the absolute monarchy 
prepared for him by Ferdinand and Isabella. 

The strengthening of the central power was needful to 
create a modern nation. But the history of England has 
taught us that the central power may be strong without 
being an absolute monarchy. 

Growth of The vice in the Spanish system was the 

monarchy in attempt to seek national power by subjecting 
Spain. all classes within the nation to the absolute 

will of the monarch. 



ch. vi. The Future of Spain. 209 

This vice was the worm at the root of the greatness of 
Spain, and silently wrought the ruin in which she finds 
herself to-day. 

Philip II., the son and successor of Charles, „, .,. TT 

,., , . -, , , , . Philip II. 

was, like his predecessor, an absolute king. 

It was during the period of Spanish supremacy in 
Europe that the Council of Trent decreed 
the absolute ecclesiastical supremacy of the league with 
Pope. It was the Spanish Jesuits who had the Papacy ' 
brought this about. It was by adopting the Spanish 
Inquisition that the ecclesiastical triumph was to be 

enforced upon the people. And now Philip 

tt , -u ,. u' L Seeks t0 

II. s aim, as we have seen, was to establish establish 

both the absolute power of the Spanish throne f^^t 
and the papal supremacy, wherever his rule macy to- 
extended, by the sword and the Inquisition. ge 

England felt this influence in the days of Queen 
Mary, but happily Philip II.'s Spanish Armada failed to 
conquer England under Elizabeth. He tried Fatal results 
his fatal policy in the Netherlands, and, as of his policy. 
we Lave seen, they revolted, made good their revolt from 
both Spain and Rome, and became a free Protestant 
nation. He tried the same fatal policy in Spain, and 
with what result ? The Spaniard of to-day points to the 
civil and ecclesiastical despotism of the reign of Philip II. 
(from which, unhappily, Spain could not shake herself 
free, as the Netherlands did) as the point in her history 
when her national life was strangled, her literature began 
to lose its power, her commerce to languish. To fatten 
an absolute monarchy, and armies of officials, soldiers, 
and priests, in course of generations the nation was 
ruined. Spain for a while was big on the map. For a 
while she maintained her supremacy in Europe, but her 
greatness was not the result of her advance on the path 
of modern civilisation. It was not the result of true 
P 



210 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

national life — the welding together of all classes into a 
compact nation. It rather belonged to the old order of 
things, and so was doomed to decay. 

(b) The future of France. 

Absolute monarchy answered no better for France 
than for Spain. 

France was a prey during the era to the evils caused 
by the constant wars of Francis I. While the two abso- 
^ , . lute monarchs strove for supremacy in Italy, 

Everything \ J ■" 

sacrificed to their subjects alike suffered. The reckless- 
SmbmorfoV ness of the ambition of Francis I. showed 
the absolute itself in the way in which, while persecuting 

monarchy J ' . ° 

under heresy m France, he was ready to ally him- 

Francis I. gelf wit k tlie p rotestan t s of Germany, or even 
the Turks, if need be, to gain his military ends. He 
bequeathed his ambition for military glory and supremacy 
to his successors. 

France, though a Catholic power, fought on the Pro- 
testant side in the Thirty Years' War, and one result of 
it was that the supremacy of Spain ended and that of 
France began. But French, no less than Spanish su- 
premacy, was the growth of absolute monarchy, contrary 
to the true interests of the French nation. It was gradu- 
ally ripening the seeds which were already sown, and 
which bore fruit in the great Revolution of 1789, and in 
the alternate republics and despotisms under 
whfchhS which France has since suffered so much. 
absolute 1^ wan t of common feeling and interest 

monarchy . . " 

was to between the citizens of the towns and peasants 

France. ^ t ^ e rura l districts which began so early in 

French history still continues to perplex her rulers, and 
so does the lust for military glory and supremacy in 
Europe which also is an old inheritance of the French 
people. 



ch. vi. The Future of France. 21 1 

The way in which the Protestant revolution was met 
in France also left scars upon the nation which may be 
* traced to-day. Under Francis 1. Calvinism spread in 
France among the nobility, whose order had been 
humbled to make way for the absolute mon- Struggle 
archy. This gave rise in the next era to with the 
religious wars, in which some of the Protes- in France. 
tant nobility headed rebellion against the Catholic throne. 
These civil wars lasted forty years, and cost the lives, it 
is said, of more than a million Frenchmen. 

In France the persecution of heresy was political as 
well as religious. Political ambition and intrigue, as well 
as religious bigotry, prompted it, and stained the pages of 
French history with crimes unique in their blackness. 

The massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572 was the 
diabolical work of the queen, Catherine de' Massacre of 
Medici, to maintain her political power. She , St - Bai ; th o- 

i 1 1 • 1 -i tt 1 • lomewin 

had coquetted with the Huguenots when it 1572. 
served her purpose. She tried to exterminate them by 
the massacre of 20,000 — some say 100,000 — in one fatal 
night. The Edict of Nantes in 1598 ended To i eration 
the civil wars and granted a respite from per- for a time 
secution, but its revocation in 1685 resulted Edict of 6 
in the banishment of the Huguenots from Nantes - 
France. Some of them came to Protestant JoYfnS'c 
England, and brought with them their silk and and the ba - 
their looms. Thus France by her intolerance the Hu- 
lost one arm of her national industry and an s uenots > who 

J come to 

important element from her national character. England. 
The want of cohesion and unity of interest between vari- 
ous classes in France was increased by the banishment of 
the Huguenots. There is even now a middle term want- 
ing — a missing link — between her religious and her re- 
publican elements. The Puritans — the religious repub- 
licans—were that middle term in England. 
p 2 



212 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENERAL RESULTS OF THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT 
REVOLUTION. 

(a) On the Growth of National Life. 
We have now traced the course of the Protestant re- 
Influenceof volution, and marked both its direct results 
the Protest- upon those nations which revolted from Rome, 
tk>n r on°na- and also its indirect results upon Rome her- 
tionalhfe. se j£ an( j th ose nations which remained in 
allegiance to her ecclesiastical empire. 

The revolution was obviously only partially successful. 
Where it succeeded it produced reform — the 

Where it sue- r 

ceeded. Protestant nations had gained one substantial 

step towards independent national life and towards the 
blending of all classes within them into one community. 

Where it failed, it produced, as every unsuccessful 
„„ . revolution does, reactio7i. The Catholic na- 

Where it ' 

failed. tions seemed to gain in the outward signs of 

strength by the alliance which resulted between the civil 
and ecclesiastical powers within them. But it was an 
alliance intended to strengthen the absolute power of the 
Crown and of the ecclesiastical empire, and thereby all the 
more to enthrall the people. Henceforth, both in France and 
in Spain, the nation was more than ever enthralled under 
the double despotism of Crown and Church. The Inquisi- 
tion may be taken as the symbol of the one kind of des- 
potism, and the French Bastille of the other. The two 
despotisms acting together tended, as we have seen, to 
destroy national life, to increase the separation of classes 
and prevent their being welded together by common in- 
terests into one community. It postponed their progress 
on the path of modern civilisation and ended in a aeries 



ch. vii. Results of the Era. 213 

of alternate revolutions and reactions, out of which it is 
hard to see a final escape. So hard is it for nations to 
cast off the fruit, however bitter, of seeds sown even 
centuries ago ! 

Where it partially failed and partially succeeded, as in 
Switzerland and Germany, we have seen that it resulted 
in civil wars and in the postponement of the where it 
growth of their national life almost to our own p ^ tly f f 1 lled 
times. In Switzerland the people were already succeeded. 
free, but in Germany, where serfdom still prevailed, the 
emancipation of the peasantry was postponed till the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century. 



(b) On the Relations of Nations to each other. 

_ The Protestant struggle apparently did little or nothing 
to secure progress in civilisation in the dealings between 
nations. The events of the era show that the Small — 
notion of universal empire which had marked provement k 

i i 1 i r 1 • r 11 the dealings 

the old order of things was not yet fully between na- 
given up. The aim after extension of empire tl0ns * 
which went along with it we have noticed throughout 
The struggle between the two absolute monarchies of 
Spain and France for supremacy in Christendom, the 
efforts of the princes of the House of Hapsburg to unite as 
many countries as they could under their rule, the designs 
that both France and Spain had upon Italy, the revived 
claims of Henry VIII. to the old English possessions in 
France — in all this there was little sign of progress^from 
the old to the new order of things. Although the Oxford 
reformers were faithful in enjoining upon princes an inter- 
national policy based upon the golden rule, The Oxford 
and havine for its object not the aggrandise- refor pe r s 

^ J °° not listened 

ment of the prince but the weal of the nation, to in this. 
the popes and princes still preferred to follow the maxims 
of ' the Prince ' of Machiavelli, rather than those of the 



2 14 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

fi Christian Prince ' of Erasmus. They still, as Erasmus 
said, treated the people too much as ' cattle in the 
market.' 

Nor was the immediate result of the Protestant revo- 
lution any cessation from international strife. For the 
next hundred years there was almost incessant strife 
between Catholic and Protestant powers. 

Though, however, Henry VIII. himself hankered 
But Henry again and again after the realisation of the 
vill. was empty title of King of France ; yet practically 
English king we may say that Henry VIII.'s dreams were 
tecov«-ing f tne ^ ast in which English monarchs have in- 
France. dulged on that subject. 

And though the attempts to urge sounder views on 
international matters did not succeed in this era, yet they 
\nd H7io-o were n °t made wholly in vain. Before the 
Groti?is was century was out was born Hugo Grotius, the 
the century father of the present system of international 
was out. } aw? yfao was well acquainted with the works 

of Erasmus, and like him rejected Machiavellian prin- 
ciples and sought to base the law of nations upon the 
golden rule. 



(c) Influence on the Growth of National Languages and 
Literature. 

In no point was the effect of the Protestant struggle 
more clearly marked than in the stride it gave, as it were 
all at once, to the growth of national languages and litera- 
ture. 

In Germany we noticed how Luther and Hutten ap- 
pealed to the people as well as to the learned ; how, first 
writing in Latin for scholars, they soon found it needful 
to write in German for the people ; how Luther intro- 
duced woodcuts to make his appeals to the popular ear 



ch. vii. Results of the Era. 215 

still more vivid and telling. All this promoted the growth 
of a national popular literature. This turning from 
Latin to German was in fact throwing off in L ut h er 's 
one point the yoke of the scholastic system, -Bible and 

,..,,- . r hymns fix 

and was in itself a great step in advance tor the character 
the nation to have taken. The crowning gift ^n\^ r ~ 
of Luther to the German people was in fact guage. 
his German Bible and his German hymns. The earnest 
vigorous German in which they are written fixed the future 
style of the language. The German spoken to-day is the. 
German of Luther's Bible and hymns. They have been 
better known by the German people than any other litera- 
ture, and so have done more than perhaps anything else 
to form the German language, and with it in no small 
degree the national character. 

It was so in some measure in France. Calvin did not 
gain so great a hold on the French nation as 
Luther did on the German, but still his French Calvin's wri- 
Bible did very much the same thing for the §Sffi£i- 
French language that Luther's Bible did for guage. 
the. German. 

In England, too, the same thing is to be marked. The 
fact that the religious controversies of the times were 
carried on by books and pamphlets, not in 

_., ._-,... k . . Influence of 

Latin but m English, gave a stimulus to Tindai's 
English literature, and prepared the way for Jj^JJJ ^ ^he 
the succeeding generations which were to give English ver- 
England her Shakespeare and her Milton. §?bie° andso 
Nor can it be forgotten that the noble Eng- Englishman. 
lish version of the Bible has done as much guage. 
as other versions in other countries to fix the character of 
modern English. The simplicity, terseness, and power of 
the English version, to which the taste of England, after 
frequent wanderings, again and again returns as to its 
best classical model, we owe, and this should not be 



2 1 6 Results of the Protestant Revolution. 



PT. III. 



forgotten, to the poor persecuted but noble-minded Eng- 
lish reformer, William Tindal, who in his English New 
Testament set a type which others in completing the 
translation of .the whole Bible loyally followed. 

(d) Effect in Stimulating National Education. 

The same movement which promoted so much the 
growth of national language and literature, also did much 
to throw open the gates of knowledge to the people by 
fostering education and schools. 

Savonarola founded schools in Florence. Colet set a 
noble example in England, and the next generation fol- 
Schools lowed it by establishing the grammar-schools 

founded by which so often bear the name of King Edward 

Savonarola, TTXT1 11T ^ _, 

Colet, and VI. Luther and the Protestant German states 

Luther established common schools. Calvin did the 

Calvin,' same thing in Geneva, and Calvin's disciple, 

the°Pilgrhu John Knox, in Scotland. Finally, the Pilgrim 

Fathers, Fathers carried the same zeal for education to 

and the 

Jesuits. their colonies in New England. Even the 

Jesuits made a great point of education, and became 
noted wherever they went for their educational establish- 
ments. So that both in Catholic and Protestant countries 
a great stimulus was given to popular education during 
the era, while the fact that at least some of the property 
of the dissolved monasteries was diverted to educational 
purposes in connexion with the Universities and other- 
wise, gave a somewhat similar stimulus also to higher 
education. 

(e) Influence on Domestic Life. 

There are few things, if any, more important to the 
steady growth of a free nation than the maintenance of 
domestic virtues and the sanctities of family life. 



ch. vii. Results- of the Era. 217 

The domestic instincts, more than any others, were the 
first germs of national life. In Teutonic nations espe- 
cially the powerful ties of family life, widening Political im- 
in their sphere extended from the family to the 5°^^ ° f 
tribe, from the tribe to the nation, introducing life. 
law and order and peaceful relations within the sphere 
embraced by them. 

Now the domestic virtues of nations had Danger to ; t 
been in great danger of decay, and no doubt ( rom the ex - 
had suffered enormously through the influence country of 
of so large a body of clergy, monks, and nuns J^ 6 ceh " 
in a forced state of celibacy. classes. 

This system sapped the foundations of domestic life 
by holding up the married state as lower in virtue than 
that of celibacy, by cutting off so large a number of 
people from the natural influences of home life, and still 
further by promoting in a terrible degree immorality and 
crime. 

The dissolution of the monasteries and Dissolution 

. . r . . r , , . , of monaste- 

permission of the marriage of the parochial ries and per- 
clergy were in themselves steps gained in Seciergy to 
civilisation of great importance in a moral marry, a step 

,,..,,, T ,. . . - in civihsa- 

and political, as well as in a religious point of tion. 
view. 

{/) Influence on Popular Religion. 

In yet another way -did the Protestant revolution suc- 
ceed in promoting national life and the aims of Christian 
civilisation. 

It made religion less a thing of the clergy and more a 
thing of the people. It gave the people religious services 
in their own languages instead of in an un- The Protes . 
known tongue. By placing within their reach tant move- 
the Christian Scriptures in their own language krisedre"" 
it led them to think for themselves, and to be l!§10n3 



2 1 8 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. hi. 

directly influenced by Christianity as taught by its founder 
and apostles. It tended to strengthen individual convic- 
tion and conscience, and so ultimately it led, though with 
many drawbacks, to further steps being gained towards 
freedom of thought. 

It is well to mark also that this bringing of religion 
nearer home to the individual conscience of the masses of 
and brought tne P e °pl e > an d cultivation of individual re- 
it into har- sponsibility rather than reliance on a priest- 

monywith . 

true Chris- hood or a church, tended to bring it more 
modern and * nt0 harmony, not only with the tendencies of 
civilisation, modern civilisation but also with the essential 
character of Christianity itself, as conceived by its founder 
and his apostles, and so to make it once more the great 
civilising influence which from the first it was intended 
to be. 

Christianity was without doubt the power which more 
than anything else produced the great movement of the 
era, and turned the civilisation of the future 
civilisation into the course we have described. The mere 
chief charac- humanists had not succeeded in impressing 
teristic to the semi-pagan stamp of their philosophy 
nstiamty. U p 0n j^ Had they done so the principle of 
the old Roman civilisation— the good of the few at the 
expense of the many — might have marked the civilisation 
of the future as it had done that of the past. But we 
have seen it was the men of deepest Christian convictions 
■ — the religious reformers — who succeeded in giving their 
impress to the era. It is thus to Christianity more than to 
anything else that we owe the direction given in the era 
to modern civilisation, its characteristic aim to attain the 
highest good for the whole community. 



ch. vii. Results of the Era. 2 1 9 



- i.S) Wa7zt of Progress in Toleration. 

There was one thing especially in which there seemed 
to be reaction rather than progress during the era, viz. in 
toleration. 

We said that one great work of the era was to set 
men's minds free from ecclesiastical and scholastic thral- 
dom — to set both science and religion free, for without 
this freedom there could be no real progress in civilisa- 
tion. 

In fact, an immense number of minds had got free 
from that particular ecclesiastical and scholastic thraldom 
against which they had rebelled in becoming ^, 

° ...... n _ „ Cnangefrom 

Protestant. And this in itself was no small Catholic to 
result. Bu{ what has already been said must ^edf-was 
have made it clear that the Protestant refor- change from 
mers, in adopting the theology of St. Augus- scholastic 
tine, and insisting upon their followers adopt- another 
ing the new Protestant creeds, did but appeal equally 
from the scholastic standards of their day to ngl 
others just as rigid ! 

The Oxford reformers had aimed at leaving people 
open to form their own honest judgment on various 
points of theology and practice, according to 
their own consciences, and urged that people nSfon C be- 
with different opinions and practice might be i^^re ^ 1 " 1 " 
members of the same Christian Church, have of thought 
charity one towards another, and agree to ingi'tto Ce " 
differ without quarrelling. But how hard a others - 
thing it was to get people to do this we see from the case 
of Sir Thomas More himself, who, though he had 
advocated toleration in his ' Utopia,' yet afterwards, seeing 
the anarchy Protestantism had led to on the Continent, 
and fearing its spreading to England, became himself a 



220 Results of the Protestant Revolution. p T . hi. 

persecutor. We must not be surprised after this that the 
Protestant reformers failed also in the same respect. It 
is strange to see how little connexion there seems to be 
between claiming freedom of thought and conceding it to 
others. 

Lutherans persecuted Catholics as well as Catholics 
Protestants ; and, worse still, they persecuted their 
fellow-Protestants who followed Zwingle and Calvin 
rather than Luther. So Calvin put Servetus to death, and 
So persecu- exercised a thoroughly intolerant rule in 
tion did not Geneva. So the English Government, after 
persecuted the revolt from Rome, persecuted Protestants, 
tolerant. an( j soon a f ter or dered ^y statute practices 

which a few years before they had condemned. So the 
Catholic Government of Queen Mary shed the blood of 
Protestants again. So the English Protestant Church of 
after generations persecuted the Puritans. So finally, the 
Puritans, fleeing from persecution to New England, put 
people to death for no other crime than that they honestly 
preached doctrines differing from their own ! Looking at 
these facts, one would certainly say that the Protestant 
struggle had not made men more tolerant ! 

And yet, in spite of this temporary failure, toleration 

was a distant fruit of the great movement we have traced. 

In this era its first seeds were sown. Sir 

Yet tolera- ,_.. ._ r , , T T . , - . 

tion was Thomas Mores 'Utopia' was perhaps the 

of th/iiti- 116 ^ rst c ^ ear statement of the doctrine of tolera- 
mate results tion. The works of Erasmus did something, 
testant re- probably more than is known, to prepare the 
volution. minds of men for its ultimate adoption. The 

strength of conscientious conviction which Protestantism 
created made men claim freedom as a right, and after all, 
the men who were fighting the battle of toleration with 
most effect, were the men whose strength of conscientious 
conviction made them endure persecution rather than 



ch. vii. Results of the Era. 22 r 

surrender their freedom of conscience, even though they 
themselves, under other circumstances, might have been 
persecutors. 



(h) The Causes why the Success of the Era was so partial. 

We might, in view simply of its immediate results — 
the wars and bloodshed, and anarchy, persecutions, and 
heartburnings which came out of it — be inclined to regard 
the failures of the era of the Protestant revolution as 
greater than the good we owe to it. 

This would be false. It would be to forget that 
progress in civilisation is of necessity like 
that' of the advancing tide, made up of ebbs must be 
and flows. / It is well also to note clearly the s raduaL 
cause of the failures, and especially of those of which 
we have just been speaking. 

Let us ask ourselves why did not the human mind in 
this era free itself from its trammels, claim its true* 
freedom, and concede it to everyone ? The Limited by 
answer is, that it was impossible. The range the , rai ?g e of 

' c ° men s know- 

of knowledge was too narrow. Men's minds ledge. 
could not take a broader view of things than the horizon 
of their knowledge and their philosophy let them. 

Let us try to realise what were the bounds of their 
knowledge in some directions. 

They knew that the earth is a globe, and in their own 
time Magellan, for the first time, had sailed round it. 
But they thought the earth was in the centre 
of the universe, and that all the heavenly f tieuai-™ 
bodies move round it every twenty-four hours. verse - 
The notion that it was the earth that moved they thought 
to be absurd. We should see the motion, they The earth 
said. At the rate it would have to move, it ^^^^ hl 
would leave the clouds behind it as it went, centre. 



222 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. m. 

and towers and church steeples would be thrown down by 
the violence of so rapid a motion ! 

So the earth stands still, they maintained, in the 
centre of the universe. The heavenly bodies were sup- 
The crystal- posed to rotate on what were called crystalline 
line spheres, spheres. The first was the sphere of the 
moon — all things confined within it were called sublunary 
things. They were supposed by some to be under such 
pressure as made the heaviest things all tend towards the 
centre, while the lightest things tended upwards. It was 
sometimes said that it was in the nature of fire and air to 
rise, while it was the nature of water and earth to fall 
towards the centre. In rough ways like these they tried 
to account for the facts which are now attributed to the 
force of gravitation. The spheres beyond the moon were 
called celestial spheres. First, they thought, came those 
of Mercury, Venus, and the Sun, then in order those of 
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn ; then that of the fixed stars, 
and, outside all, a ninth sphere, called ftrimum mobile, 
which gave motion to all the others. They believed 
Heaven further, in a vague way, that heaven came 

beyond. beyond. Theologians speculated upon what 

sort of a sphere that of heaven must be, and Erasmus, in 
his ( Praise of Folly/ laughed at their ' creating new 
spheres at pleasure, this the largest and most beautiful 
being added that, forsooth, happy spirits might have room 
enough to take a walk, to spread their feasts, or play at 
ball.' 

Such was the universe of spheres, one within the 
other, which they thought all moved round the earth in 
The motions the centre every twenty-four hours. It was a 
rISrded er6S smau thing altogether, compared with the 
with awe, vastly wider and grander universe, a little bit 
of which modern science has revealed to us, but it was a 
marvellous universe still, and its mysteries filled them with 
awe when they thought of it. 



ch. vii. Results of the Era. 223 

When asked questions about it, some wise men like 
Erasmus answered, ' God only knows.' But more supersti- 
tious minds gave far different answers. Luther, anc j [ n popu- 
who saw the action of the Devil in every ac- ^^feSed 
cident which befell him, stood aghast at the to angels. 
magic motions of the celestial spheres, as ' no doubt done 
by some angel.' Many wise men still believed . 

• ,. ,, . . i , Astrology. 

in astrology. They could not bring themselves 
to believe that the stars and planets, looking down upon 
our world, had not some magic meaning. When comets 
came, they saw in them ominous presages of coming 
events. Pico and Ficino, Colet, Erasmus, Laughed at 
and More had all tried to laugh people out Eei?e°™d > ut 
of belief in astrology. Luther, too, laughed by others. 
at it, but Melanchthon still held on to the old belief in 
spite of Luther's arguments and jests. How can there be 
anything in astrology, Luther used to say to him, since 
Jacob and Esau were born under the same star ! 

The same kind of superstition which attributed the 
motions of the planets to angels, and magic influence on 
the affairs of men to the stars, made men the 
more readily believe in visions and inspira- visions and 
tions, such as we have seen in the case of the lns P iratlons > 
wilder reformers from Savonarola down to Munzer and 
Loyola. Luther himself was remarkably free from these 
things — he never claimed either visions or inspirations, 
as the wilder prophets did ; but, as an instance of how 
superstitious even he was, it may be mentioned that he 
and Melanchthon devoutly believed that a and - m prodi . 
monster had been found in the Tiber, with gies. 
the head of an ass, the body of a man, and the claws of a 
bird. After searching their Bibles to find out what the 
prodigy meant, they concluded that it was one of the signs 
and wonders which were to precede the fall of the papacy 
and published a pamphlet about it. 



224 Results of the Protestant Revolution. PT . 



in. 



Luther again, and probably everybody else, believed 
in witchcraft. Hundreds and thousands of poor wretches 
Universal were burned for the supposed crime of having 
witchcraft S ° ld themselves to the powers of evil, and 
having held communion with evil spirits. 
And stranger still is it that the number of witches burned 
Witches as was rapidly on the increase. There were 
Heretics more witches burned in the 16th century 

burned. than in any previous one, and more still in 

the next. 

Heresy and witchcraft were looked upon as nearly 
allied, and probably the zeal against both grew together. 
Nor was the cruel death allotted to these supposed crimes 
out of proportion to that of others. Thousands and 
thousands of people were hung in England for no other 
crime but that of vagrancy and c sturdy begging.' The 
Cruelty of system of criminal law was everywhere brutal, 
criminal law Soon after the Peasants' War, the Prince 
Bishop of Bamberg published a popular crimi- 
nal law book for the benefit of his subjects — his poor 
crushed peasantry amongst others— in which were in- 
serted woodcuts of thumb-screws, the rack, the gallows, 
the stake, pincers for pulling out the tongue, men with 
their eyes put out or their heads cut off, or mangled on 
the wheel, or suspended by the arms with weights hung 
on their feet, and so on ; and then, to add the terrors of 
another world (as if these humanly inflicted tortures were 
not enough), there was a blasphemous picture represent- 
ing the day of judgment, and the hobgoblins carrying off 
their victims . to hell. The Prince Bishop, we may sup- 
pose, had learned a lesson from Luther, and produced, as 
he thought, a good book for the laity, meant, not like 
Luther's, to dispel men's fears of the Pope, but to frighten 
his poor subjects into submission to his episcopal and 
princely authority. This may be taken as an example 



ch. vii. Results of the Era, 225 

both of the way in which civil and ecclesiastical power 
were sometimes blended together, and of the brutality of 
the times. 

Such an age was not ready for wider views. Further 
knowledge of the laws of nature must 
come before popular superstitions could be prepared for 
removed, and until this was done it would toIeration - 
be in vain to look for much progress in toleration and free- 
dom of thought. 



(/) Beginning of Progress in Sciejitific Enquiry. 

Nevertheless the era of which we have spoken was 
the beginning, of the era of freedom. From it dated a 
great awaking of human thought. Its great Be innin of 
geographical discoverers had opened new scientific gC 
fields for scientific enquiry. Not only had enquiry - 
navigators been round the world, but they had seen as it 
were the rest of the sky. They had seen the south pole- 
star and the Southern Cross in their voyages round the 
Cape of Good Hope. Thus was not only their geogra- 
phical but also their astronomical knowledge widened. 

A beginning of truer and wider views of the universe 
was almost a natural consequence, but to attain to it 
scholastic and even ecclesiastical bonds had to be 
loosened. A scientific Luther was wanted to burst 
through them, but the age did not produce such a man. 
Nevertheless it did produce one who silently lived and 
worked timidly to demonstrate that the motions of the 
planets and the moon can only be fully accounted for on 
the hypothesis that the sun and not the earth is the 
centre of the solar system, that the moon is a satellite 
of the earth, and that the sphere of the fixed stars is at an 
immense distance from the farthest of the planetary 
spheres. Our present theory of the solar system is still 
Q 



226 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

sometimes called after his name, Copemican, though it 
is far more truly called after Newton. 

Nicolas Copernicus died two years before Luther. 
His story is that of a brave life, and one which may 
Nicolas well be set by the side of that of other great 

Copernicus. men f ^g era> Educated at the University 
of Cracow, in Poland, he afterwards proceeded to Rome, 
and studied under the best astronomer of the day. 
Then he spent a long life in working out his grand 
scientific problem from careful observations and accord- 
ing to the best lights he could get. He was loyal to the 
Church. He did not want to be a heretic, and yet the 
great truth he had to tell was contrary to the teaching of 
the Church. For thirty-six years — all the time the Pro- 
testant struggle was raging — he was working at the 
immortal book in which his observations and discoveries 
were embodied, but he did not venture to publish it till 
under Paul III. there was a lull in the ecclesiastical 
storm. He was then an old man, in broken health ; his 
book was in the printer's hands when he was 
worknot on his death-bed. All he cared for now was 

S^newas on t0 SeC il Safe in P rint before he died - H e 

his death- waited at death's door day after day. At last 
the printer's messenger came with the printed 
book. He received it with tears in his eyes, composed 
himself and died. This was in 1543, and he was seventy 
years old. He was followed by other scientific dis- 
coverers — Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo. Thus the 
brave life of Copernicus may be taken as marking the 
epoch when scientific thought and enquiry began to free 
itself from theological trammels and to seek to discover 
the laws of nature by a simple, childlike, and careful 
observation of facts. But necessarily many generations 
must pass away before men became used to scientific 
modes of research and of thought. 



Economic Results of the E> 



227 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ECONOMIC RESULTS OF THE ERA. 



Results of 
the era on 
what re- 
mained of 
the feudal 
system. 



Amongst the powers which belonged to the old order of 

things, and which were going out, the feudal 

system was mentioned as silently giving way 

under the combined influence of the growth 

of the central power in the modern nations 

and of commerce. 

The results of the era in hastening the dissolution 
of the feudal system require a few words of further ex- 
planation. 

In Germany, we have seen, serfdom — the essential of 
which it will be remembered was services of forced 
personal labour in return for occupation of 
land — remained unchanged, except for the 
worse, after the Peasants' War, and lasted on 
till the beginning of the present century. 

In France serfdom was a thing of the past, but 
there remained numberless feudal rents and 
payments made chiefly in kind (i.e. in pro- 
duce of the land) which the peasantry 
went on paying till the French Revolution of 
1789. 

In England serfdom was gone, but had left behind it 
fixed rents in money instead of the old feudal 
payments in services or in kind. These rents 
were originally nearly equal to the annual 
value of the land. But an economic cause 
came into play during the era which, while 
it did not help the German peasant nor the 
q o 



In Germany 
personal 
services con- 
tinued. 



In France 
feudal rents 
and pay- 
ments chiefly 
171 kind con- 
tinued till 
1789. 



In England 
feudal rents 
were chiefly 
in fixed 
money pay- 
ments. 

French 



228 Results of the Protestant Revolution, pt. in. 

peasant who paid his rent in kind, lessened the burden 
Effect of the of tne English peasant's rent so much as to 
discovery of change his position gradually into that of an 
mines in the absolute owner. 

This economic cause was the discovery of 
the silver and gold mines in the New World. 

It made silver more plentiful, and therefore cheaper in 
proportion to other things such as corn and land. In 
The fall in other words it increased the price in pence 
the value of and shillings of almost everything. A penny 

moneycaused , .„. , n . , 

a great rise in or a shilling would not buy so much corn 
prices. after as before the new mines were discovered; 

and as in England Tudor monarchs at the same time, 
for their own purposes, lessened the weight of silver in 
the penny and shilling by about one-third, the effect of 
the increased plenty of silver was made all the greater ; 
6s. would buy a quarter of wheat at the beginning of the 
century, it took 38^. 6d. to buy a quarter of wheat at 
the end of it. The annual value of land was about 
\d. per acre at the beginning of the century, 30^. at the 
end of it. 

The German peasant was not helped by this, for he 
had to work just as many hours a day for his feudal 
This did not landlord at the end as at the beginning of the 

ksse^the century . 

peasant's The French peasant, so far as he paid in 

services. produce, was not helped by it, because the 

Nor the r . ' f . J ' 

French price of his produce had increased as fast as 

rerSTn S tne value of the land, and his rent remained 

produce. the same burden as before. 

But the English peasant, who in the year 1500 

paid /\d. an acre fixed rent for his land which was 

But it re- then worth about ^d. an acre in the market, 

duced the found himself in 1600, if he still held on to 

burden of ,.,,.„ , 

the English his land, still paying only \d. an acre, while 



ch. viii. Economic Results of the Era. 



229 



peasant s 
rents in 
money to 
£th or &th of 
the value of 
their land. 
This would 
have made 
them 

peasant pro- 
prietors had 
they held on 
to their land. 
But their 
tendency 
was to leave 
their land 
and become 
labourers 
for wages. 



his land was worth in the market six, seven, 
or eight times as much as that. His burden 
of rent was reduced to |th or £th of what it 
used to be. 

Had the English peasantry held on to 
their land as the German and French pea- 
sants did, they would thus have grown into 
peasant proprietors paying very small nomi- 
nal rents for their land. But other economic 
causes were at work, tending to loosen them 
from their little holdings and make them 
labourers for wages. The growth of com- 
merce and manufactures attracted them to 
the towns, the large farms of men with capital more and 
more took 'the place of the little peasant holdings, and 
thus began the present state of things in which England 
differs so much from other countries. 

There were perhaps, in the year 1500, about half a 
million families in England living by the land, and most 
were, or had been, farming some little bit of 
land for themselves. Perhaps there were not 
so many as a quarter of a million families 
earning their living by trade or manufactures 
in the towns, and most of them owning their 
own workshops or looms. 

The half million agricultural families have now grown 
into.about a million. These no longer are occupiers of land, 
but are mostly working for wages for a few hundred thou- 
sand farmers. But in the meantime the two or three 
hundred thousand families living by trade and manufac- 
tures have increased to 3,000,000, and these again, as a 
general rule, like their agricultural brethren, have become 
workers for wages, and no longer are owners of their own 
workshops and looms. 

We probably owe this to the growth of capital and 



Change from 
peasant pro- 
prietorship 
of land or of 
looms to 
labour for 
wages, 



230 Re 'suits of the Protestant Revolution, ft. hi. 

commercial enterprise, stimulated by the increased profit 
,. „ . which comes from division of labour, and 

chiefly the '_ 

result of the doing things on a large scale by machinery 
commerce rather than on a small scale as of old by hand 
and capital, labour. But what we have to mark here is 

and the use 

ofmachi- that the beginnings of these great changes 
nery ' were already at work in the era of which we 

have been speaking, and that in their course the last 
remains of the old feudal system have been demolished in 
England. We only see in England now traces of a sort 

of mock-feudalism in the deer forests and 
changes had game preserves, and antiquated forms and 
lefhTemury 6 customs still clinging to the laws of land 
and they tenure. These things are survivals of a 

thTSient system which once had life, but which be- 
fhe fcudif lon g ed t0 the old order of things. In the 16th 
system in century it was already fast dying out to make 

way for commercial enterprise and all that 
belongs to the new order of things— an order of things 
which has multiplied by six or seven the population of 
England, and peopled with about an equal additional 
number of Englishmen those great colonies for which 
the maritime enterprise of the 16th century first opened 
the way. 



CONCLUSION. 

In the introductory chapter we said that the passage 
from the old decaying form of civilisation to the new, 
better, and stronger one, involved a change which must 
needs take place slowly and by degrees ; but that in 
the era under review was to be the crisis of the change— 
the final struggle between the two forces. 

We have now traced the main lines of the history of 



Conclusion. 



2-31 



The Protes- 
tant revolu- 
tion was the 
beginning of 
a great revo- 
lutionary- 
wave which 
broke in the 
French 
Revolution 
of 1789. 



this crisis, and tried to point out its connection with the 

future . as well as with the past. We have seen that 

the Protestant revolution was but one wave 

of the advancing tide of modern civilisation. 

It was a great revolutionary wave, the onward 

swell of which, beginning with the refusal of 

reform at the Diet of Worms, produced the 

Peasants' War and the Sack of Rome, swept 

on through the revolt of the Netherlands, the 

Thirty Years' War, the Puritan Revolution in 

England under Oliver Cromwell, the formation of the 

great independent American republic, until it came to a 

head and broke in all the terrors of the French Revolution. 

It is impossible not to see in the course of the events 
of this remarkable period an onward movement as 
irresistible and certain in its ultimate progress 
as that of the geological changes which have 
passed over the physical world. 

It is in vain to speculate upon what might 
have been the result of the concession of 
broad measures of reform everywhere (as in 
England) whilst yet there was time ; but in 
view of the bloodshed and misery which, humanly 
speaking, might have been spared, who can fail to be 
impressed with the terrible responsibility, in 
the eye of history, resting upon those by 
whom in the 16th century, at the time of the 
crisis, the reform was refused ? They were 
utterly powerless, indeed, to stop the ultimate 
flow of the tide, but they had the terrible 
power to turn, what might otherwise have 
been a steady and peaceful stream, into a turbulent and 
devastating flood. They had the terrible power, and they 
used it, to involve their own and ten succeeding genera- 
tions in the turmoils of revolution. 



The move- 
ment was 
inevitable, 
and might 
have been 
peacefully- 
met and 
aided by 
timely re- 
forms. 



But the 
refusal of 
reform at the 
time of the 
crisis in- 
volved ten 
generations 
in the 
turmoils of 
revolution. 



233 



INDEX. 



ADR 

ADRIAN VI., 149, 150, 174, 200 
Aleander, Papal nuncio, 165, 

106, 114, 126 
Alexander VI., 2,3, 25, 36, 70-3, 200 
Alsace, see Elsass 
Alva, Duke of, 195 
America, discovery of, 4 
Anne of Cleves, 189 
Armada, the Spanish, 195, 209 
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 52, 169 
Astrology, 223 
Augsburg confession, 164 
Augsburg, peace of, 166 
Augustine, St., theology of, 95,96, 103, 

196, 219 



BAMBERG, bishop of, 224 
Bavaria, rising of peasants in, 145 
Berlichingen, see Gotz v. 
Berne revolts from Rome, 161 
Bible, English version of, 180, 187, 215 ; 

German, 131, 215; French, 215 
Boheim, Hans, 60 
Boleyn, Anne, 175, 182 ; marriage of, 

179 ; beheaded, 188 
Borgia, Caesar, 23, 25, 70, 73 
Bosworth, battle of, 51 
Bourbon, Duke of, 151, 152, 174 
Buckingham, execution of, 171 
Bundschuh, the, 60, in, 113, 124, 134- 

137 



CABOT, Sebastian, 4, 54 
Calvin, John, 196-199 ; influence 
of writings of, 215 
Cambray, league of, 127 



DEN 

Campeggio, 176 

Capets, dynasty of the, 40 

Cappel, peace of, 161 

Caraffa, cardinal, 207 

Carinthia, rising of the peasantry in, 

145, 146 
Carlstadt, 131, 133, 136, 138, 141, 142 
Casimir, Markgraf, 144, 146 
Catherine of Arragon, 52, 88, 128, 169- 

171, 175, 176, 179 ; death of, 188 
Catherine de' Medici, 211 
Celibacy of the clergy, influence of, 217 
Charles V., 29, 37, 100, 109-130, 149- 

155, 162-166, 171, 174, 175, 190, 191, 

195, 208 
Charles VIII. of France, 26, 36, 45, 72 
Christian II., 193 

' Christian Prince ' of Erasmus, 90, 97 
Civilisation, character of modern, 5 
Clement VII., 150-156, 174, 179, 200 
Colet, John, 76-94, 98, 178, 185, 216, 

223 
Columbus, 4, 36, 39, 54 
Commerce, 3, 17, 20, 227-230 
Contarini, Gasper, 201, 202 
Contarini, the younger, 206 
Copernicus, Nicolas, 226 
Cranach, Lucas, 116, 117 
Cranmer, 179, 187, 192 
Criminal law, cruelty of, 224 
Cromwell, Oliver, 198 
Cromwell, Thomas, 186-192 
Crusades, the influence of, 3, 17 



DANTE, 22 
Denmark, revolt of, from Rome, 
193-194 



234 



Index. 



DIE 



LUT 



Diets, German, 29 (see Worms, Spires, 

Ratisbon) 
Dudley (minister of Henry VII.), 80- 

82 



EDWARD VI. , 189 
Elizabeth, princess (afterwards 

queen), 188 
Elsass, rising of peasants in, 61, 144 
Empson (minister of Henry VII.), 80-82 
England under Henry VII., 46-55, 

74-81 ; under Henry VIII., 81-90, 

128-9, 150-1, 167-193 
Erasmus, 78-80, 90, 97, 98, 101, 106- 

110, 130, 148, 172-173, 185, 201, 202, 

220, 223 



T7ERDINAND and Isabella, 4, 26, 
-£- . 35, 36, 86-88, 101, 168 
Ferdinand I. of Austria, 166 
Feudal system, 15, 19, 28, 30, 227-230/ 

(see Serfdom) 
Ficino, 67-8, 72, 75, 223 
Field of the cloth of gold, 129 
Fisher, Bishop, sent to the Tower, 182, 

201 
Flodden, battle of, 88 
Florence, 25, 66-74 
Forest cantons of Switzerland, 161 
France, 40-46, 86-89, 127-130, 149-151, 

165-190, 210-211 
Francis I., 27, 88, 98, 100, 128, 129, 149- 

151, 202 -210, 211 
Franconia, rebellion of peasants in, 

60, 141 
Franz von Sickingen, 30, 109-112, 114, 

124, 125, 134-136 
Frederic of Saxony, 98, 99-130, 134, 

148 
Frundsberg, General, 121, 146, 150, 

152 



GALILEO, 226 
Genevan reformers, the, 195-199 

Germany, 26-33, 57~65, 94-148, 162- 
166, 215 

Geyer, Florian, 139, 143 

Gold mines of new world, effect of dis- 
covery of, 228 

Gonsalvo de Cordova, 26 

Gotz von Berlichingen, 30, 109, 144 

Granada, conquest of, 4/35 

Graubund, the, 59 

Grocyn, 76 



Grotius, Hugo, 214 
Guicciardini, 24 
Gustavus Adolphus, 194 
Gustavus Vasa, 194 



HANSE Towns, 18, 31 
Helfenstein, Count von, 139, 

140 
Henry VII., 50-55, 80-81, 168, 169 
Henry VIII., 26, 27, 42, 81-90, 97-101, 

128-129, 150, 167-193, 214 
Heresy, 180-181, 219 
Hermann, 158 
Hesse, Philip of, 164, 165 
Hipler, Wendel, 139 
Holy Alliance, the, 86 
Howard, Admiral, 87 
Howard, Catherine, 190 
Huguenots, the, 198-199, 211 
Humanists, 68, 74, 200 
Huss, John, 14, 59, 103, 116, 119, 123 
Hutten, Ulrich von, 109-112, 114-119, 

124-126, 134-136 



TNDULGENCES, sale of, 97-100 

J. Infanta of Portugal, 129, 151, 175 

Innocent VIII., 70 

' Inquisition,' the, 39, 207, 209 

Italian reformers, 199-202 

Italy, 21-26 (see Rome and Popes) 



JEROME of Prague, 14 
Jesuits, order of, 203-206, 216 
Johanna of Castile, 37 
Joss Fritz, 62-63, ZI 3) I 33 _I 36 
Julius IL, 26, 86-7, 169, 173, 200 

T£ EMPTEN, peasants' rebellion in, 

Kepler, 226 

Knox, John, 198-199, 216 



LAMBERT SIMNEL, 51 
Leo X., 26, 87, 97-149, 174, 200 
Lilly, 81, 84 
Linacre, 76 
Lollards, 14, 85, 173 
Louis XL of France, 42 
Louis XII., 26, 86, 88 
Loyola, Ignatius, 203-206 
Luther, Martin, 94-134, 147, 161, 162- 
165, 172, 202, 215, 223, 224 



Index. 



235 



MAC 



SWI 



MACHIAVELLI, 18, 21, 24, 40, 
44/ 73, 159, 160 
Magellan, 221 

Marignano, battle of, 88, 128 
Mary, princess, afterwards queen, 128, 

151, 170-171, 174, 175, 191, 195 
Maximilian, emperor, 18, 28, 37, 61, 

86, 100 
Medici, Cosmo de', 66, 67 
Medici, Lorenzo de', 66-j, 70, 150 
Medici, Catherine de', 211 
Melanchthon, Philip, 100, 105-107, 

117, 132, 164-65, 202, 223 
Michael Angelo, 67 
Milan, 25, 41, 128, 149 
Mohammedan power, the, 2, 4, 34, 163, 

164 
Monasteries, dissolution of, 186-187 
Moors, in Spain, 2, 4, 34 
More, Sir Thomas, 78-94, 168, 172-174, 

177, 180-184, 21 9> 22 3 
Morgarten, battle of, 58 
Morton, Cardinal, 53, 178, 200 
Miinzer, 133, 136, 138, 145 



NANTES, edict of, 211 
Naples, 25, 41, 128 
Netherlands, revolt of from Rome, 194- 

i95 
New Testament of Erasmus, 92, 180, 
iS5 ; of Tindal, see Tindal 



OXFORD Reformers, 74-94, 171- 
172, 185, 219(5^ Colet, Erasmus, 
More) 



PARR, Queen Catherine, 190 
Pavia, battle of, 150, 174 

Paul III., 201, 202, 207 

Paul IV., 207 

Peasants' war, 136-148, 172 

Peasantry, condition of in England, 
48, 227-230 ; in France, 44 and 227- 
230 ; in Germany, see Serfdom 

Perkin Warbeck, 51 

Petrarch, 23 

Philip de Commines, 43 

Philip II. of Spain, 37, 166, 191-195, 
209 

Pico della Mirandola, 68-9, 72, 223 

Pilgrimage of Grace, 188 

Pilgrim fathers, 216, 198-199 

Pole, Reginald, 188, 201, 206 

Politian, 68 



Popes of Rome, 23-26, 200, and see 
Innocent VIII. , Alexander VI., 
Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI., 
Paul III., Paul IV. 

' Praise of Folly ' of Erasmus, 82, 98, 
no, 185 

'Prince, The,' of Machiavelli, 73 

Printing, invention of, 4 

Protestants, origin of name of, 163 

Puritans, the, 198, 211, 220 



RATISEON, Diet of, 165, 202 
Revival of learning, 3, 66, 74 
Revolts from Rome — in England, 167 - 

— in Germany, 162-166 

— in Switzerland, 159-162 

— in Denmark and Sweden, 193 

— in the Netherlands, 194 
Richard III., 50, 53 
Rohrbach, little Jack, 139 
Roman Catholic Church, 8 
Roman civilisation, 6 

Rome, 8, 21-26, 96 ; sack of, 152-155 

Roper, Margaret, 182 

Rothenburg, peasants' war at, 141-144 



SICKINGEN, see Franz 
St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 

211 
St. Paul's school, founded by Colet, 84 
Savonarola, Girolamo, 69-72, 75, 117, 

216 
Saxony, John of, 164, 165 
Schmalkalden, league of, 164, 165 
Scientific enquiry, beginnings of, 225 
Scientific knowledge, 221 
Scholastic system, the, u-15, 74 
Serfdom in Germany, 20, 32-3, 57-65, 

136-148, 227 
Serfdom in France, 20, 44-6, 227 
Serfdom in England, 20, 48, 227-229 
Servetus, 198, 220 
Slavery and slave trade, 40 
Spain, 34-40, 208-210, and see Charles 

V. 
Spalatin, 105, 106, 112, 119, 121 
Spires, Diets of, 151, 154, 162-163 
Spurs, battle of the, 87 
Storch, Claus, 132, 133, 138 
Swabia, insurrection of peasants in, 

137-138 
Swabian league, the, 64, 137-138 
Sweden, revolt from Rome of, 193-194 
Switzerland, 58, 159 



236 



Index. 



TET 

TETZEL, 99 
Thirty Years' War, 162, 166, 

194, 210 
Thuringia, insurrection of peasants in, 

i45 
Tindal, William, 180, 187, 216 
Trent, Council of, 202, 206-209 
Truchsess, George, 138, 140, 146 
Tycho Brahe, 226 
Tyrol, rising of peasants in the, 145-146 



ULRICH VON HUTTEN, see 
Hutten 
Ulrich, D., of Wiirtemberg, 63 
United Provinces, the, 195 
Universe, ideas of the, 221 
Universities, 13 
Universities of England visited and 

reformed, 187 
Utopia, More's, 91, 93, 97, 168, 180, 

219, 220 



VALDEZ, JUAN DE, 57, 152, 201 
Valdez, Alphonse de, secretary 
of Charles V., 127 



ZWI 

Vasco de Gama, .4 

Venice, 25 

Vienna besieged by the Turks, 163 



T17ARTBURG, castle of the, 126, 

Weinsburg, the piper of, 139-140 
Wiclif, 14, 59, 103 
Witchcraft, belief in, 224 
Wittenberg Reformers {see Luther and 

Melanchthon) 
Wolsey, 87, 89, 149, 150, 173-178, 192, 

200 
Worms, Diet of, 1 12-130, 151, 162, 

163, 166, 167 



XAVIER, FRANCIS, 204-205 
Ximenes, cardinal, 37, 149, 200 



ZURICH revolts from Rome, 160- 
161 
Zwickau, prophets of, 132-133 
Zwingle, Ulrich, 160-162, 197 



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